Golden Finger Arrives? Seems Useless

In the following days, Yuefeng's life fell into a bizarre rhythm.

During the day, he acted like every other freshman trying to survive at Advanced Nurturing High School: pretending to study hard, trying to adapt, and working to minimize his presence.

At night, back in his luxurious yet desolate single dorm, he acted like a spy preparing for an exam, frantically recalling, organizing, and recording all the "known intelligence" he could remember about this school, the various classes, and the key figures.

"Class D, Horikita Suzune, lone wolf, brother-complex, good grades but low emotional intelligence, recent threat: might be targeted by Ayanokoji as a tool... oh, my younger brother is the biggest wholesaler of tools."

"Class D, Kushida Kikyo, angel on the surface, but in reality... uh, this one is too dangerous, approach with caution, but the intelligence value is high."

"Class C, Ryuen Kakeru, Tyrant, believes in rule by violence, recent potential action: probing Class D, searching for weaknesses, methods include but are not limited to provocation, extortion, violence..."

"Class C, Ibuki Mio, combat girl, one of Ryuen's thugs, beware of her flying kicks."

"Class B, Ichinose Honami, angel, the embodiment of unity, currently in the safe zone."

"Class A, Katsuragi Kohei, rigid and by-the-book; Sakayanagi Arisu, sickly chess player, gods fighting, best to stay away."

Yuefeng wrote until his wrists ached, staring at the dense forest of names and notes in his notebook.

He felt like a player stuck in an ultra-high-difficulty strategy game, where the target was the entire school, and he could be countered by an NPC at any moment.

"What is all this..." He collapsed onto his mattress, staring at the ceiling, "I'm just an ordinary high school student who wanted to read novels and sleep..."

However, life soon proved to him that at Advanced Nurturing High School, wanting to be "ordinary" was a luxury in itself.

During physical education that day, the content was basic physical training and simple ball games.

Operating on the principle of "seeking no merit, only avoiding mistakes," Yuefeng tried his best to blend into the crowd, keeping his movements standard but never standing out.

His current body seemed decent enough; at least he didn't pant like a bellows while running, but it was limited to "decent." He couldn't compare to the sports specialists or guys like Sudo, Ryuen, and Ishizaki, who were packed with muscle.

During free time, the boys split into groups to play basketball. Yuefeng wanted to skirt the edge, but Ishizaki caught him with a single glance.

"Hey, the new guy! Ayanokoji!" Ishizaki dribbled the ball, smiling maliciously, "Come on, come on, let's play!"

"Let's see what else you've got besides those skinny limbs and a face that looks like that gloomy guy from Class D."

Several other boys from Class C joined in the heckling. Yuefeng's heart skipped a beat; he knew this was a setup.

Although Ryuen wasn't on the court, he sat on the nearby bleachers, watching the scene with ease, clearly tacitly approving or even enjoying the spectacle.

Forced onto the court, Yuefeng quickly realized his understanding of basketball was still at the "throw the ball into the hoop" level, and Ishizaki and his crew clearly had no intention of playing a friendly match.

The physical contact was exceptionally intense, with constant petty fouls.

Yuefeng was knocked around, barely able to touch the ball. When he finally grabbed a rebound, someone intentionally tripped him as he landed, and he instantly lost his balance, lunging forward.

"Watch out!" someone shouted from the side, but it sounded more like jeering.

As he was about to land face-first in a standard "flat-out" posture, Yuefeng lamented in his heart, My life is over, while simultaneously grumbling that this school bullying was far too direct.

However, the moment his body tilted and he was about to make intimate contact with the ground, something strange happened.

Everything around him suddenly... slowed down.

No, it wasn't a physical slowdown, but the speed at which his vision received and processed information seemed to have been forcibly elevated to an absurd degree.

The mischievous, slightly savage smile on Ishizaki's face unfolded frame by frame like slow motion in his eyes; the arc of his curling lips and the mockery in his eyes were all visible in excruciating detail.

Another boy nearby reached out, seemingly to "help" him or perhaps to give him another shove, his movement as slow as if he were swimming in space.

The basketball hit the floor and bounced; the trajectory of every speck of dust seemed to be elongated and frozen.

Even the angle of his own body leaning forward and the trajectory of his arms waving unconsciously formed an incredibly clear prediction in his consciousness.

Time had not stopped, but his thinking and reactions were faster than ever before at that moment.

"What is... going on?" Yuefeng was stunned, but his body instinctively made adjustments based on the suddenly surging, slow-motion visual information.

The fall that was destined to be embarrassing was averted at the last second; using the momentum of his imbalance, he twisted his waist in a slightly awkward but effective motion, turned his body, and slammed his left hand onto the ground!

"Thud!"

A muffled sound. Yuefeng knelt on one knee, supporting his body with one hand, and stopped steadily.

Although the posture wasn't graceful—it was even a bit comical—he definitely hadn't fallen, and he certainly hadn't landed face-first.

The basketball rolled away with a "thump-thump."

The court went quiet instantly.

The smile on Ishizaki's face froze, slowly turning into astonishment.

He had clearly timed his trip perfectly; how did this kid dodge it with a move that was almost like a circus trick, as if he had known beforehand?

Although he looked a bit disheveled supporting himself at the end, he hadn't gone down.

On the bleachers, Ryuen's previously lazy gaze narrowed slightly, landing on Yuefeng, his fingers tapping lightly on his knee.

Yuefeng's own heart was pounding like a drum as he slowly stood up and brushed the dust off his hands.

The "slow motion" experience from that moment had vanished, and the world had returned to its normal speed.

But that peculiar feeling, as if he could capture every single detail, still lingered in his consciousness.

"You..." Ishizaki frowned at him, at a loss for words. Call it luck? But that reaction speed didn't look like luck.

"Sorry, I lost my footing," Yuefeng said first, his tone calm, devoid of any detectable emotion.

He could not show anything unusual, at least not now. "Almost bumped into you." He took the blame upon himself, citing a "loss of balance" to give both parties a way out.

Ishizaki snorted and did not continue to press the issue, but the look he gave Ayanokoji Yuefeng was clearly more inquisitive. "Your reflexes are quite fast. It seems you aren't just a total pushover."

A potential conflict was nipped in the bud by that sudden "divine reflex" of Yuefeng's, one he himself did not even understand.

During the subsequent activities, although Ishizaki and his group continued to target Yuefeng with constant petty tricks, Yuefeng felt that dealing with them had become... much easier.

No, it wasn't that his body had become more agile, but that he could "see" more.

When someone tried to bump into him from the side, the opponent's starting movements and shifts in center of gravity were highlighted in his eyes, allowing him to move away half a step in advance.

When a basketball was hurled at him from a tricky angle, he could clearly "see" the ball's rotation, its trajectory, and even predict where it would land.

Although he caught it in a flustered mess, he at least managed to avoid getting hit directly in the face.

This feeling was too bizarre! It was like suddenly activating a "Bullet Time" or "Perception Enhancement" cheat code in a video game!

But where did this cheat come from? How long was the warranty? Were there any side effects? A myriad of questions raced through Yuefeng's mind.

As physical education ended, Yuefeng dragged his sore, mentally exhausted body toward the locker room, his mind still replaying those "Slow-Motion" scenes.

"Yuefeng." A voice sounded from behind, not loud, yet it sent a chill down Yuefeng's spine.

It was Ryuen. He had followed him at some point and was now walking side-by-side with Yuefeng, his gaze fixed straight ahead, his tone as casual as if he were discussing the weather.

"That move just now, not bad," Ryuen said.

Alarm bells rang in Yuefeng's heart, but on the surface, he could only remain calm. "Just good luck, I almost made a fool of myself."

"Luck?" Ryuen chuckled, though there was no warmth in the sound. "I've been observing you for a while."

"Your motor skills are very average, your coordination is poor, and your basic physical fitness is... mediocre. But..."

He stopped walking and turned his head, his viper-like eyes fixed intently on Yuefeng.

"Your reflexes, and your ability to predict the movements of those around you, are, at certain moments, abnormally fast."

"Especially when Ishizaki tripped you, and those other times later on—the timing of your dodges was too precise to be a fluke."

Yuefeng's breath hitched slightly. Ryuen's observational skills were truly terrifyingly sharp.

Yuefeng began to improvise, trying to make his reasoning sound as plausible as possible. "When I was a child... I practiced some basic martial arts, so I might have some conditioned reflexes."

"Besides, I am... prone to nervousness, and perhaps my reflexes get faster when I'm anxious."

It was a lousy excuse, but he couldn't think of a better one on the spot.

"Martial arts basics? Nervous?" Ryuen repeated the words, his eyes growing even more amused. "Ayanokoji Yuefeng, it seems there are more interesting things about you than I thought."

"It's not just this face, and your connection to that Class D student, Kiyotaka Ayanokoji."

He patted Yuefeng on the shoulder; the force was lighter this time, yet Yuefeng felt even greater pressure.

"Keep up this little 'special talent' of yours. In Class C, sometimes having fast reflexes can save you a lot of trouble." After saying this, Ryuen stopped looking at him and walked straight into the locker room.

Yuefeng was left standing alone in the hallway, fine beads of cold sweat seeping from his temples.

"I've been targeted... I really have been targeted," Yuefeng wailed internally. "What kind of broken golden finger is this! It came so suddenly, and it's so conspicuous!"

"Great, now instead of being a background character, I've become an 'interesting' object of observation!"

He walked into the locker room and splashed his face with cold water, looking at the face in the mirror—one that resembled Kiyotaka's, but was filled with distress.

"Slow-Motion Vision... what exactly is going on? Is this a perk of transmigrating?"

"Or is it a hidden talent inherent to the original owner of this body? That can't be right, isn't the original owner just a background prop in the setting?"

"And, this ability seems to be triggered passively? Does it only activate when encountering an 'attack' or a 'crisis'?"

"Ishizaki and his group were clearly acting with malice, which is why it triggered..."

Yuefeng began to analyze, trying to find a pattern. If that were the case, the ability wasn't entirely useless; at the very least, it was a decent skill for self-preservation and evasion.

But the problem was that it was uncontrollable, and it seemed to consume quite a bit of energy. He felt mentally exhausted, as if he had just completed several sets of high-difficulty logic puzzles.

"Whatever, having it is better than not having it." Yuefeng dried his face and changed into clean clothes. "At least next time Ryuen tries to hit me, I might be able to see how he throws his punch... even if seeing it doesn't guarantee I can dodge it."

"Wait," he suddenly thought of a more serious problem, his expression falling. "Is this ability... useful against Kiyotaka?"

Thinking of Kiyotaka's superhuman physical fitness and unfathomable calculations.

Yuefeng felt that even if Kiyotaka's movements looked as slow as a sloth in his eyes, he would likely still be unable to escape the fate of being thoroughly manipulated.

"Sigh, with a Tyrant lurking in front, a CPU-kun brother behind, and a flaky, troublesome father in the middle. My life after transmigration is truly colorful and full of challenges."

Yuefeng sighed, walked out of the locker room, and looked up toward the building where the Class D classroom was located.

"Kiyotaka, oh Kiyotaka, please don't stir up any more big trouble."

"Your brother here just had his eyes go haywire; I can't handle any more complex side quests for the time being..."

"However," he rubbed his eyes and looked at his own hands, muttering to himself, "If I used this 'Slow-Motion' ability to read and study... would my efficiency multiply?"

"Maybe I could even earn some decent points on the next exam?"

"Right, it's decided! Next time Ryuen tries to pick a fight, I'll use this ability to observe his openings! And then... then I'll decisively admit defeat!"

After all, strength is everything. Knowing when to yield is also a form of strength, right? Probably.