A Way to Resolve the Abnormality!

Natsume Chikage quickly discovered what was wrong with his body.

He tried to make himself stand up, but his body seemed to lag behind. Several beats passed before it responded.

The sudden abnormality allowed Natsume Chikage to quickly deduce the cause—it had to be from raising his Mental attribute just now!

Before raising his Mental attribute, he had never had any such problems.

His body was healthy too; there was no chance of some sudden illness.

This delay-like sensation was most likely caused by his Mental attribute being too high.

To use an apt analogy, Natsume Chikage was now like a computer with severely unbalanced specs.

His mental power was a top-tier processor with exceptional computing ability, while his body was like outdated peripheral hardware, utterly incapable of matching the processor's performance.

This incompatibility threw the entire system out of sync—his thoughts were as fast as lightning, but his body was sluggish as an ox.

To put it even more simply, it was like playing games such as League of Legends or Honor of Kings, where the character you controlled always had latency above 100ms.

You could still play, but it felt awful, and you could not perform as smoothly as you could with low latency.

Natsume Chikage frowned, having never expected this kind of "mental runaway" to happen.

Still, it was not without a solution.

Since the hardware could not keep up, he just had to find a way to make it keep up.

And the corresponding "hardware" was the Constitution attribute displayed on Natsume Chikage's panel.

The simplest solution for now was to obtain another attribute point and directly invest it in Constitution.

Natsume Chikage understood that he absolutely could not put his next attribute point into Mental again, or something serious would definitely happen.

In a sealed bottle, there would be no problem if the water inside did not fill it completely.

But once the water exceeded the bottle's capacity—

The result would be cracks in the bottle from the pressure, or even complete rupture.

In other words, Constitution could be higher than Mental, but Mental absolutely could not be higher than Constitution.

To resolve the current situation, he had to restore the balance between Mental and Constitution.

Once that happened, there presumably would not be any more problems.

"I was careless..."

It was Natsume Chikage's first time using an attribute point. He truly had no experience with this and had never guessed something like this would happen.

Fortunately, he already knew of more than three special items he had yet to collect.

Yukimura Suzune's Literary Trinket, his sister's bracelet, the Confession Cherry Blossom Tree, Aunt Miyuki's collectible fighting magazine, and so on.

He had to collect these special items—or uncover new ones—as quickly as possible.

He needed to fulfill the condition of "collect three special items to obtain one attribute point" as soon as possible, then immediately add it to his Constitution attribute!

Otherwise, if too much time passed, no one could guarantee when his body might develop a more serious abnormality with the "bottle overflowing."

"Natsume, why are you still standing there? Don't you understand this problem?" The bald math teacher tapped the blackboard with his chalk.

Only then did Natsume Chikage realize that he was supposed to go up and answer the question.

Seeing this, Saionji Nanase immediately took out the notes she had just written, waved them in front of Natsume Chikage, and whispered, "Natsume, the answer is this..."

Natsume Chikage paused. Though he did not need it, he still thanked her. "Thank you."

With that, he slowly began to walk.

However, unaccustomed to his current "lag," his steps were unsteady. Before he had even taken two steps, he bumped into Yukimura Suzune's desk in front of him.

Yukimura Suzune froze, then frowned at him, clearly displeased.

"Sorry..." Natsume Chikage quickly apologized and continued forward. After bumping into another classmate's desk—

He gradually adjusted to the "lag." His steps no longer wobbled, and he could walk normally again.

Seeing Natsume Chikage stumble about and bump into several desks, the bald math teacher immediately sensed that something was wrong and began to worry.

"What's going on? You can't even stand properly. Are you still groggy from sleep, or are you feeling unwell?"

"If you're unwell, tell me. I'll take you to the infirmary right now."

Hearing that, the other students also felt that something seemed off with Natsume Chikage just now.

Otherwise, how could someone bump into things several times just by walking normally?

Yukimura Suzune noticed it as well and looked at Natsume Chikage a few more times.

But the one who felt it most strongly was Saionji Nanase.

Saionji Nanase now recalled how Natsume Chikage had suddenly fallen over with a thud earlier, then slept for a long time. Perhaps he had not wanted to sleep at all—perhaps something had gone wrong with his body?

"I'm fine." Natsume Chikage shook his head.

"Are you really fine?" the bald math teacher pressed. "If you're uncomfortable, say so. Don't keep it bottled up."

"It's really nothing." Natsume Chikage shook his head again.

He understood his own physical condition very well. It was not something medicine could treat, and going to the infirmary would not mean much.

Seeing that he insisted there was no problem, the bald math teacher could not press further.

At that moment.

Holding a piece of chalk, Natsume Chikage looked at the blackboard.

He found two math problems written on it.

Because he had fainted and had not heard the lesson at all, he assumed both needed to be solved and wrote down the answers to both on the blackboard.

The bald math teacher was immediately a little dumbfounded when he saw that he had actually written out the answers.

Wait, this bottom-ranked kid had slept through nearly the entire class without listening to a word, and he actually knew how to solve them?!

And he had only been asked to do the math problem on the left, so why had he solved the one on the right too?

The problem on the right was one he had not even taught yet. It was an advanced problem meant for several lessons later.

How had this bottom-ranked kid solved it?

The bald math teacher was thoroughly confused.

Wasn't Natsume Chikage supposed to have terrible grades?

How did he even know how to solve something that had not been taught yet?

No.

Hadn't Saionji Nanase just shown him a notebook a moment ago? He must have seen the correct answers then.

That had to be it.

Saionji Nanase had ranked first in the entire school on the entrance exams.

It was not surprising for such a smart girl to know how to solve advanced math problems.

Still, this kid was ridiculously lucky.

Despite being at the bottom of the class, he had the school's first- and second-ranked students, Saionji Nanase and Yukimura Suzune, right beside him. One of them had even been willing to show him the answers.

Fine. Luck was part of one's strength too.

The bald math teacher waved a hand. "You got them right. Go back to your seat."

Natsume Chikage nodded slightly, then walked back to his seat.

This time, since he had gotten somewhat used to the "delay," he no longer staggered around or bumped into other people's desks like before.

But after he sat down.

Saionji Nanase covered her face with a book and looked toward Natsume Chikage, quietly asking with concern, "Natsume-kun, you look like you're not feeling very well. Are you really okay?"

Natsume Chikage shook his head.

"Thank you for your concern. I'm fine."

Suspicion showed in Saionji Nanase's lively eyes, but for now, she could only believe that Natsume Chikage really was fine.