Attribute Increase!

Class 1-A.

Before the lunch break ended, Natsume Chikage returned to the classroom.

The moment he walked in, the noisy classroom fell silent.

Countless gazes focused on him.

Natsume Chikage paid them no mind and headed straight to his seat.

The instant he sat down, several students gathered around him, firing off questions.

"Natsume, did you really reject Tsukishima-senpai?"

"That's amazing. We're talking about Tsukishima-senpai here."

"Why did you reject her?"

"I heard Tsukishima-senpai cried really hard. What exactly did you say to her?"

Natsume Chikage offered no explanation. He merely waved them off.

Ring—ring—

The crisp bell broke through the classroom's clamor.

Seeing that Natsume Chikage had no intention of revealing anything further, the onlooking students could only return to their seats with their curiosity unsatisfied.

A trace of disappointment flashed through Saionji Nanase's lively eyes. She had been hoping to hear Natsume Chikage's reason for rejecting her.

Yukimura Suzune still looked down at the literary novel in her hands, but the page before her seemed to have remained open for an unusually long time. Only now did she gently turn it.

Before the teacher arrived, the atmosphere in the classroom remained relaxed, and the students continued chatting in hushed voices.

Soon, the bald math teacher entered with his lesson plans tucked under his arm.

The class immediately fell quiet.

The student on duty promptly stood up and called out loudly:

"Stand!"

"Bow!"

"Sit!"

The entire class carried out the routine in perfect unison.

The math teacher gave a slight nod and began the day's lesson.

Having returned to his first-year high school classroom, Natsume Chikage found math effortless, since it had been one of his strong subjects before.

Still, he had been reviewing old material to gain new insights, and had already gone over content from much later on.

Besides, now that he had finally obtained the attribute point he had been waiting for, his mind was no longer on the lesson.

He slightly closed his eyes and sank his consciousness into the panel in his mind.

[Character: Chikage]

[Age: 16]

[Strength: 4] (The average attribute value for a normal adult is 5)

[Agility: 4]

[Mental: 5]

[Constitution: 5]

[Charm: 9]

[Equipment: "Young Boy's Painful Diary" "Dust-Covered Chess Manual" "To the Person I Fell in Love with at First Sight"]

[Available Attribute Points: 1]

[Until the next attribute point reward: 3 more pieces of equipment needed!]

An irrepressible excitement surged within him.

He had waited far too long for this attribute point.

However, deciding how to allocate this precious point became a matter that required careful consideration.

Natsume Chikage had no intention of making a living off his face, so there was little point in raising his Charm any further. He naturally had no plans to spend the attribute point on it.

That left only Strength, Agility, Mental, and Constitution.

After some thought, he decided Strength and Agility could be set aside for the time being.

In modern civilized society, exceptional strength and speed had limited use outside of certain specialized fields.

His ambitions did not lie there, so there was no need to prioritize them.

That left him with a final choice between Mental and Constitution.

Could an increase in Mental perhaps bring a leap in cognitive ability?

And could an enhanced Constitution possibly mean better health and endurance?

Or might improving these two attributes bring some unexpected hidden effects?

Natsume Chikage couldn't be sure. He could only find out after trying to allocate points.

But between the two, the Mental attribute was undoubtedly the more appealing choice at the moment.

Strength, Agility, and even Constitution could all be improved through diligent training.

Only the "Mental" attribute couldn't be raised through training.

And the higher his "Mental" attribute was, the more useful it would presumably be for studying and shogi.

After all, he would be competing tomorrow. Even a lion used its full strength to hunt a rabbit—any little boost in strength was worth taking!

With that thought, he hesitated no longer.

With a slight movement of his mind, he allocated that precious attribute point to Mental.

[Available Attribute Points: 1 → 0]

[Mental: 5 → 6]

The instant the point was added—

"Bzz!"

An indescribable agony suddenly exploded deep within his mind!

It felt as though countless red-hot steel needles were wildly stirring and piercing his brain, carrying out some incomprehensible reconstruction and transformation beyond all reason.

When someone was in pain, they couldn't make a sound.

The intensity of that suffering, far beyond the limits of human endurance, instantly robbed Natsume Chikage of his voice.

Natsume Chikage couldn't even last a second. His vision abruptly went black, and he completely lost consciousness, collapsing face-first onto his desk.

Beads of cold sweat began seeping uncontrollably from every pore in his body, swiftly soaking the hair at his forehead and his thin school uniform.

Clearly, even while unconscious, he was still undergoing that indescribable mental reconstruction.

Hearing the dull impact, Saionji Nanase turned her head in confusion and found that Natsume Chikage had actually fallen "asleep" at his desk.

"Was he too tired from noon...?"

Saionji Nanase felt that sleeping in class wasn't exactly a good thing, but considering how Natsume Chikage had always been, she really couldn't bring herself to say anything.

After all, Natsume Chikage had often slept in class ever since middle school.

Even when teachers scolded him, he never changed.

Eventually, the teachers simply turned a blind eye and let him do as he pleased.

Thinking that, she decided it was better not to meddle.

But when she recalled Natsume Chikage mentioning his dream of getting into the University of Tokyo, she couldn't help feeling sorry for him...

The math teacher at the podium naturally noticed as well and shook his head helplessly.

Though he wasn't the homeroom teacher, he had heard about this student, who had become a topic of discussion among the teachers because of his looks and today's confession incident.

As long as it didn't disrupt the lesson, teachers who had seen enough students like this naturally turned a blind eye to them sleeping in class.

And he had heard that Natsume Chikage had never been much of a studious student at school and often slept through lessons.

The fact that he had lasted until the second day of the new term before putting his head down was already giving them face.

"Forget it, forget it..."

The bald math teacher stopped dwelling on it and continued teaching.

Meanwhile, during class—

A blonde girl passed through the hallway.

Her silky golden hair gleamed delicately beneath the sunlight.

Quite a few students in the class had their attention drawn to her, especially the boys, whose gazes unconsciously followed that lovely figure.

The instant they saw Kondo Miki, they were captivated by her proud bearing and exceptional presence.

At that moment, Kondo Miki was carrying a stack of documents the teachers needed as she returned gracefully to her classroom.

As she passed Class A, she recalled what had happened at noon and couldn't help looking toward the window seat at the back.

Natsume Chikage was actually sleeping during class?

This was only the second day of school!

Kondo Miki's steps involuntarily paused for a moment, disbelief and helplessness appearing on her face.

She only felt that the senior she admired, Tsukishima Rin, truly had terrible taste.

She had actually taken a liking to such an unmotivated boy.

Playing games after class before was one thing—he could at least claim he was relaxing after studying, which was barely understandable.

But now he did not listen in class at all, just slept outright. Clearly, he had never taken studying to heart.

His family was already in such dire straits, yet he still had no ambition at all?

If not for that face of his, there was probably nothing else worth looking at!

Sure enough, she had been right to decide not to have too much contact with Natsume Chikage.

One takes on the color of one's company.

Stay around someone like him for too long, and one would only fall into decline.

Fortunately, Natsume Chikage had the self-awareness to reject Senior Tsukishima Rin and had not tarnished her status as an untouchable flower atop a high peak.

Otherwise, if those two started dating, he would probably drag Senior down and even make others look down on her as well.

Thinking of this, Kondo Miki both pitied Senior Tsukishima Rin and felt that this pitiful person, Natsume Chikage, had his own sad reasons for being so.

She gently shook her head, then turned and left.

It was not until class was nearly over that Natsume Chikage suddenly jolted awake from unconsciousness, gasping for breath, his forehead covered in fine beads of cold sweat.

Yet in stark contrast to the excruciating pain from before he blacked out, he now felt an unprecedented clarity and sense of refreshment.

His mind was unbelievably active. Mathematical problems that had once required repeated deliberation and still been difficult to solve now had their answers naturally springing up in his mind like water from a fountain.

It felt as though his processor had instantly upgraded from an outdated model to the latest architecture, bringing a qualitative leap in computing power.

"Oh? Natsume, you slept through more than half the class and finally decided to wake up? Looks like you had a pretty good nap, huh?"

The math teacher noticed he was awake and could not help teasing him.

A wave of subdued laughter immediately rose in the classroom, though no one said anything else.

After all, people who had never slept in class throughout their entire student lives were few and far between.

The math teacher tapped the blackboard, deciding to give him a small punishment.

"Since you're awake, come up and solve this problem."

He pointed to an example problem on the blackboard, already prepared to lecture Natsume Chikage once he was left helpless.

After all, he was a teacher whose duty was to educate students. When something needed to be said, he still had to say a few words.

Natsume Chikage looked at the problem on the blackboard.

It was only a first-year high school math problem. For someone who had previously graduated from a top 985 university, it was basically no challenge at all.

Not to mention that after his mental attribute had increased, his thinking speed was much faster. Where he had once needed to do a little calculation, he could now tell the answer at a glance.

Natsume Chikage rose in response, preparing to walk to the podium.

However, the instant he stood upright—

His legs suddenly gave out, and his body stumbled out of control, crashing heavily into his desk with a loud BANG!

The tremendous noise was especially piercing in the classroom, which had abruptly fallen silent.

The entire class's attention instantly focused on him.

Natsume Chikage braced himself against the desk with one hand, his expression dazed.

He could clearly feel that something unforeseen seemed to have gone wrong with his body.