The Law of Victory Is Already Decided

Night, Dorm 403.

Natsukawa washed away the day's exhaustion and sat at his desk, opening the laptop that had witnessed his initial struggles. The screen lit up, and a simple yet functionally complex interface appeared before him—the Campus Situational Awareness System.

This was his greatest and most precious gain this month, aside from the points.

Two days ago, while strictly adhering to the system's bizarre rules, he finally completed the development of the system's core framework. After passing repeated tests to ensure no obvious bugs affected its primary functions, he submitted it for system review. The cold notification in his mind confirmed he had completed the "price," and the knowledge known as "Primary Programming Mastery" had completely transformed into his own solid ability.

Now, it was time for it to be officially put into use.

The system was mainly composed of several modules:

Data Acquisition Layer: Based on Python's requests and BeautifulSoup libraries, he wrote several crawler scripts to periodically scrape new posts, replies, and public user posting records from various sections of the school forum. To avoid anti-crawling measures, he set reasonable access intervals and randomized User-Agents.

Data Processing and Analysis Layer: This was the most verbose part of the code. He wrote complex text parsing and cleaning logic to extract keywords (such as class, teacher, exam, conflict, points, etc.). Using simple statistical models, he calculated topic popularity, sentiment (positive/negative/neutral), and identified sudden spikes in discussion.

Intelligence Output Layer: This generated visualized reports. It included "Hot Topic Tracking" (displaying the most active discussion topics on the forum and their popularity trends), "Public Opinion Monitoring" (flagging posts involving sensitive keywords or intense emotions), and "User Behavior Analysis" (marking users with abnormal posting frequencies or sudden shifts in behavior patterns, which helped discover "abnormal individuals" or countermeasures specifically targeting Natsukawa if the other side knew his methods).

Although limited by data sources and algorithms, the system's judgment was far from 100% accurate; it was more like an advanced "public opinion radar" and "trend indicator." However, it could monitor the entire campus "public opinion field" 24/7, filtering and refining massive, disorganized information into valuable intelligence clues, allowing Natsukawa to "perceive" the undercurrents beneath the surface. This was undoubtedly a crucial weapon for his future struggles.

Just like that, he had barely started using it when he discovered posts from certain seniors in the second year mocking the first years...

Closing the system interface, Natsukawa's gaze fell on the small test papers returned today. Math and Chemistry were fine; the foundation and logical thinking skills from his previous life allowed him to handle them with ease. But for Japanese and Social Studies, which involved Japanese history, those patches of red circular marks were truly too painful to look at.

"Sigh..." He let out a breath. The pain of transmigrating without memories had arrived; he had never studied Japanese language or history. At most, he knew famous events like the Honno-ji Incident or the Meiji Restoration. This month's arduous study only allowed him to barely stay above the red line and avoid being expelled. Although he knew that according to the "plot," the first midterm exam could be solved by purchasing "past exam papers," he did not want to pin all his hopes on that.

If he were expelled, the system's 20-million-point debt would have to be repaid immediately. Sitting on such a wonderful start, how could he let his future be decided by so-called past papers?

"That's not right. I had to study hard before I had the system, and I still have to study hard after getting the system. Doesn't that mean the system came for nothing?!"

Becoming a hexagonal warrior didn't need to happen overnight, but delaying the point allocation meant he would really have to gnaw on books.

Moreover, relying on cheating was never a long-term solution; the improvement of one's own strength was the foundation. Especially these basic academic subjects, which were the cornerstone for understanding this world, integrating into this environment, and even making more complex decisions in the future.

He closed his eyes and communicated with the system light screen in his mind.

"System, redeem 'Basic Education Knowledge Mastery'."

The light screen swirled, and a new price emerged:

[Redemption Item: Basic Education Knowledge Mastery (Japanese High School Scope)]

[Price to be paid: Daily effective reading (textbooks and designated supplementary books) study time of no less than 4 hours, for 30 consecutive natural days. Interruption will result in a reset.]

"Four hours a day... acceptable." Natsukawa felt relieved internally. This time, he only needed to spend time; there were no other strange requirements.

A faint electric sensation swept through his mind. The knowledge of Japanese high school and junior high school courses entered his brain, as if the system had directly copied the information into his head. Whenever he wanted knowledge in a certain area, the corresponding information would automatically pop up, just like a search. But he knew that for the next month, he would have to strictly execute this study plan.

And although the knowledge was in his head, how to use it ultimately required Natsukawa to summarize and categorize it himself. It was like an open-book exam; it wasn't as if mastering all the knowledge meant everything was settled.

Looking at the deep night outside the window, Natsukawa's eyes were sharp and clear. The 1-million-point deposit, the launch of the Situational Awareness System, the bridge built with Class B, and the opportunities brought by stirring up the grade's landscape—these were all the capital he had accumulated.

And now, he was about to start a plan to make up for his own shortcomings. He would use the system to become a true hexagonal warrior, preparing for the challenges that might come in the future.

When he entered the classroom for lunch the next day, the afternoon sunlight was stretched into long, strip-like beams through the gaps in the curtains, lying quietly between the desks. As Natsukawa pushed open the classroom door, he saw Sakura Airi curled up in the seat at the edge of a light beam, like a little squirrel hiding in the shade to cool off.

He walked over naturally, and as he leaned down, the fabric of his school uniform jacket brushed lightly against the edge of her desk. "Sakura," he called out. The moment his voice lowered, his warm breath inadvertently brushed against her earlobe.

Sakura shuddered violently, and the mechanical pencil in her hand drew an abrupt mark on her notebook. She looked up, her blue eyes behind thick lenses widening slightly, and the tips of her ears turned a transparent pink at a speed visible to the naked eye.

"Can you lend me some money?" He straightened up, his tone as casual as if he were discussing the weather.

This sentence seemed to press a switch in her body. Sakura sat up almost immediately, frantically reaching for the student terminal in her pocket, her fingertips slipping on the screen twice. "Na, Natsukawa-kun, are you out of money?" Her voice carried genuine anxiety, as if she were the one in trouble.

When Natsukawa said, "How much do you have?" her movements on the terminal suddenly slowed down. Her eyelashes drooped, casting small shadows under her eyes. "I have... 50,000 points left," she whispered, as if handing over all her savings.

"Lend me 40,000 first."

The air froze. Her fingers gripping the terminal tightened slightly, her knuckles turning white. Her gaze wandered between the remaining numbers on the screen and the boy's calm profile—there might not be any income for a long time afterward, and she didn't want to eat the wild vegetable set meal either. However, three seconds later, she still pressed her lips together firmly, opened the transaction interface, entered the number, and pressed the confirm button.

"The points... have been sent," she said softly, her voice carrying a hint of exhaustion.

Just then, she heard a very faint sigh from above. Natsukawa put the terminal into his pocket, his gaze sweeping across the clear sky outside the window. "That's good," his voice returned to its usual clarity. "From now on, no matter who comes to borrow money from you, you can righteously say that you don't have any left either."

Sakura was stunned. The panic, reluctance, and determination from just a moment ago still lingered in her pupils, but at this moment, they were like rain clouds blown away by the wind, slowly revealing light. She finally looked up, meeting his gaze fully for the first time. Those blue eyes, which were always dodging, were now like a clear sky washed by rain, and something soft and warm was gently rippling in the depths of her eyes.

The sunlight happened to move to the corner of her desk, illuminating the bottle of strawberry milk she had just bought for lunch, making it look crystal clear.