The opening ceremony ended.
The crowd dispersed, and the already quiet atmosphere gradually fell into a state of desolation.
The morning sun passed through the window, falling on Kurusu Akira, who was walking in the center of the crowd, hollowing him out like a carving knife, revealing a heart that seemed to be burning with flames.
The surrounding chaotic footsteps combined into an unordered hot stream, slowly flowing out of the gymnasium door.
Kurusu Akira suddenly looked back at the increasingly empty gymnasium. Behind the dim podium, the newly appointed principal was chatting and laughing with a few old men.
But this time, he no longer felt that distinct and unbridled desire from the other person.
It was as if the scene he had glimpsed a short while ago was merely his illusion.
The Phantom Thief narrowed his eyes slightly.
He never believed in so-called "illusions."
Light, smell, sound... any information received by his senses might deceive him, but that intuition, which had saved him from near-death countless times, would not.
After all, the distance was too great for Kurusu Akira to clearly see the details of Shinba Takakiyo's face, so the "micro-expression" technique naturally couldn't be used.
'I must investigate that guy.'
As this thought arose, Kurusu Akira belatedly realized that he seemed to no longer be the "Phantom Thief."
Kurusu Akira, seventeen years old this year, is an ordinary high school student.
Tsk.
The "former Phantom Thief's" displeasure reached its peak.
Iseri Nina, standing beside him, clearly heard the clicking sound.
Let's figure out how to make money first, like getting that scholarship.
Kurusu Akira looked at his little follower, "What's your phone number and email address?"
Iseri Nina instinctively took half a step back, a little nervous, "Why are you suddenly asking that?"
"We have the same guardian, so in a vague sense, we're neighbors. It would be strange if we didn't know each other's contact information."
"That... that seems to make sense."
Iseri Nina looked left and right for a while, found that not many people were paying attention, then unlocked her phone and quietly leaned closer to Kurusu Akira.
Kurusu Akira also took out his phone.
The two of them looked a bit like secret agents from a mysterious organization meeting to exchange passwords.
----------------
By the time they returned to their classroom, the entire P.E. class had already ended.
The math teacher took advantage of the break to plug a USB drive into the classroom computer and began searching for the lesson's slideshow.
Kurusu Akira and Iseri Nina entered the classroom at the same time, which once again sparked discussions among their classmates.
But as the class bell rang, these gossipy voices quickly vanished without a trace. Only occasionally did whispered notes pass between a few desks, interspersed with efforts to suppress laughter amidst the math teacher's lecture.
So peaceful...
Almost too boringly peaceful.
Kurusu Akira didn't care about the occasional glances thrown his way. He simply stood his textbook upright to block the teacher's view, then unlocked his phone and began searching for popular mobile games in the country's app store.
"'Uma Musume Pretty Derby,' 'Arknights,' 'Castle Clash,' 'Master Duel'... What are these strange names?"
Seeing that he still had plenty of data, he simply downloaded all these games.
Unlike Kurusu Akira's calm composure in accepting everyone's attention, his little follower was already so restless from the constant glances from all directions that she couldn't sit still.
Iseri Nina felt that she couldn't listen to the teacher's lecture at all, always subconsciously observing her surroundings. The notebook on her desk was still completely blank.
She endured for half the class, but finally couldn't bear it anymore. So she bravely turned her head to look at her "neighbor" sitting by the window, wanting to see how Kurusu Akira, also a transfer student, would handle such a situation—
A group of graceful, cute girls with horse ears and tails were running on his phone screen.
And this boy, who in every sense should have been a super popular person, was actually staring at the screen with relish, his textbook upright on the desk, a pen spinning in his fingertips, with no trace of a notebook or scratchpad.
He didn't even care about classroom discipline, let alone the attention of a dozen classmates.
Are you really here for class?
Iseri Nina had, of course, heard of "Uma Musume Pretty Derby." She had seen advertisements for the game several times at the station.
The scene shifted, and a black-haired, horse-eared beautiful girl in a maid outfit, shyly and demurely, twisted her waist with her hands behind her back on Kurusu Akira's phone screen, looking like a femme fatale.
Then she noticed that the boy, who rarely smiled, had a subtly upward curve to his lips...
This was too incongruous!!!
Iseri Nina painfully pressed her forehead into her palm.
This scene was like the male lead of a morning drama who, a second ago, had just rejected the heartfelt confession of a Yamato Nadeshiko-like female lead, appearing as cold as iron and steel, letting her stand there crying heartbrokenly, ignoring all her desperate attempts to keep him without regard for dignity or integrity. Then, the next second, he was seen taking a taxi to an internet cafe, opening a "Galgame" with a subtly lewd and creepy smile, and starting to date a paper-thin beautiful girl.
Of course, Kurusu Akira's smile was neither lewd nor timid; instead, it had a dashing and unrestrained handsomeness that made Iseri Nina afraid to look too long, for fear of blushing and being laughed at.
However, Iseri Nina's movement just now was too large, immediately attracting the attention of the math teacher who was writing on the blackboard.
So he turned around with a stern expression, and as expected, he saw the new transfer student, Kurusu Akira.
The math teacher, who had also endured for half the class, finally reached his limit.
"Boy in the second-to-last row by the window, look up at the blackboard!"
Kurusu Akira, who was raising a horse, looked up at the blackboard, where a long mind map for the "Properties of Figures" chapter of "Math A" was drawn.
"What's your name?"
"Amamiya Ren."
Kurusu Akira poked out half his head from behind his book, his hot phone still in his hand.
It had been years since he was in high school, and he had never held a proper job, so he had long forgotten all about discipline.
Even when called upon by the teacher, he was still thinking about how to arrange Rice Shower's summer training, determined to make all the Uma Musume in Japan flee in disarray today.
The balding middle-aged man on the podium saw this and laughed in anger, "Do you know who I am?"
Some suppressed laughter also began to emerge in the classroom.
"His name is Ito Misui, our math teacher, and also the head of discipline for the second year…" A kind reminder suddenly came from behind Kurusu Akira.
"Sorry, Ito-sensei."
Kurusu Akira said cooperatively, then tapped a few options in the game before putting down his phone and standing up.
Ito expressionlessly patted the blank space on the blackboard next to him, "What are the five centers of a triangle? You answer this question."
"Circumcenter, incenter, orthocenter, centroid, excenter," Kurusu Akira said without hesitation.
"These example problems use…"
"Ceva's Theorem, Menelaus' Theorem," Kurusu Akira interjected, still fluently giving the correct answers, without even a moment's thought or hesitation.
Ito's gaze grew sharper, "Come up here, you'll solve these problems."
Kurusu Akira stood motionless behind the desk, still answering fluently, "cos45°, sin125°, cos30°…"
"Mental math? How do I know you didn't look at the answers in the book? Come up here quickly, I want to see your solution process!"
In fact, there were no answers in the book; these were all problems Ito Misui had adapted from example problems on the spot.
Kurusu Akira also knew these weren't textbook examples and heard the other party's deliberate challenge, thinking that Ito-sensei had truly found the right person.
The "Math A" he had just studied last night was now coming in handy.
Witness the academic prowess that allowed him to enter Kyoto University's Faculty of Science without prior preparation!
So Kurusu Akira walked to the podium, picked up the chalk, and began to solve those adapted example problems.
As expected, it was a perfectly executed solution. The thought process was clear, and the formulas were complete.
But Ito was still not satisfied; he was determined to give this new transfer student a profound lesson.
Kurusu Akira's nerdy appearance was too deceptive.
So he simply said, "Fill in these blanks on the blackboard as well, and then explain them to your classmates."
Then, Kurusu Akira no longer hunched his back. He began to explain the knowledge points on the blackboard on behalf of Ito in a tone completely inconsistent with his appearance, speaking eloquently while his hand never stopped, continuously writing neatly in katakana on the blackboard.
Watching the slender boy write on the blackboard with such effortless grace,
Ito was momentarily entranced, as if he was seeing a samurai from the Edo period skillfully dissecting a dead water buffalo with a wakizashi. The thick hide parted to reveal crimson muscles, and the blade fell again, cleanly and smoothly separating each muscle, exposing clean and beautiful stark white bones.
This was the realm of "mastery."
After two minutes, Ito finally deflated, simply snatching the chalk from Kurusu Akira's hand and motioning for him to go back to his seat and continue listening to the lecture.
Ito watched Kurusu Akira walk off the podium, his gaze subtly changing.
He had already confirmed that this person named Amamiya Ren had a very solid foundation in mathematics.
However, a solid foundation alone isn't enough!
Just as kendo has a standard of "menkyo kaiden" for its disciples, so too does high school mathematics.
It's like how kendo has many hidden techniques and secret arts that "cannot be taught."
Many valuable scoring points and problem-solving techniques in university entrance exam math papers are also not taught by teachers in class.
They are all hidden in various dark corners of textbooks, study guides, and exercise books!
Ito suddenly showed a somewhat chilling smile.
The entrance examination is in three days; we'll see what tricks you can pull then.
He had personally led the faculty office in completing the entire math paper over a month, and it secretly contained relevant exam points from the entrance exams of various prestigious universities, guaranteed to give this transfer student from out of town enough surprises…
What if Amamiya Ren actually solved them?
That's absolutely impossible.
Ito had heard that this guy had played around for an entire spring break, even losing his student ID.
And the exam points involved in those problems, completed by the combined efforts of all math teachers, were so tricky that they all involved "killer moves" that ordinary schools would never teach.
Often, only well-known cram schools would teach them to students who paid high tuition fees or were exceptionally gifted.
Kawakami Sadayo had mentioned the family circumstances of those two transfer students to every teacher.
He believed Amamiya Ren was an excellent prospect with great talent, but he also knew that Amamiya Ren didn't have enough time or money to spend at cram schools.
Coupled with the fact that Amamiya Ren had never been exposed to the advanced education of Tokyo high schools—
One could imagine that for Amamiya Ren to get a good score in the entrance exam three days later, it would be akin to a ronin samurai, malnourished since childhood, trying to cut down a two-meter tall, broad-shouldered strongman in heavy armor with a tattered katana.
Amamiya Ren was an excellent rough diamond.
Ito did not want to see such a brilliant child ruined by his own arrogance and various bad habits.
So he sincerely hoped that Amamiya Ren would stumble, preferably falling hard and getting badly bruised.
Then, he would correct all of Amamiya Ren's bad study habits and impart all of his lifelong knowledge to him without reservation.
----------------
Kurusu Akira returned to his seat, met with the astonished and reverent gazes of the young boys and girls.
He turned his head and thanked the boy behind him who had given him the earlier reminder, in a low voice.
Then he took out his phone and continued to raise his horse.
This "Uma Musume" is quite interesting…
Kurusu Akira brushed chalk dust from his collar.
In his previous life, when he had nothing to do, he often followed trends and bought "horse betting tickets" in various horse races, purely treating it like scratching a few lottery tickets for luck, not expecting to make money from it.
But through osmosis, he became intimately familiar with the stories and experiences of those famous steeds.
Now, seeing a mobile game that turned all those racehorses into young girls, he was having a blast playing it.
Until he saw the Uma Musume he had painstakingly raised suffer a crushing defeat to Mejiro McQueen in the "Tenno Sho," and then kneel on the screen, crying uncontrollably.
Kurusu Akira immediately gasped, instantly turning off his phone, "Why did Rice Shower lose to Mejiro McQueen by nine lengths in the 'Tenno Sho'? This must be a dream."
In the real-life history of the "Tenno Sho" horse race, Rice Shower, who was not favored before the race, successfully pulled off an upset as the "Black Assassin," defeating Mejiro McQueen, who had been highly anticipated by countless fans. This created a classic underdog story, where the clash between the king and the assassin imbued the entire decisive process with a sense of destiny and epicness.
Yet, after Rice Shower was made into a game, she ended up losing miserably to Mejiro McQueen.
To alleviate the unplaceable sense of bewilderment and confusion in his heart, he turned around, ignoring everyone else, and asked the yellow-haired boy behind him, who was also not listening to the lecture.
"By the way, what's your name?"
"Sakamoto Ryuji." The yellow-haired boy who wasn't listening to class extended his fist towards him.
Kurusu Akira bumped fists with him, acknowledging their acquaintance.
"After lunch during break, could I trouble you to show me around the campus?"
"No problem!"
Seeing the yellow-haired boy readily agree, Kurusu Akira restarted "Uma Musume."
At this moment, Iseri Nina, who was sitting nearby, cautiously turned her face to look at Kurusu Akira, her gaze increasingly approaching a kind of "looking up to a great mountain."
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To Read Advanced Chapters, and support this novel, please join me on [email protected]/geats2000