F-Rank Awakening: My System Turns Trash Skills To SSS-RANK

Chapter 33: A fool’s wish 1

He walked up the stone steps of Dorm Block C, tapped his card, and entered Room 312.

Jansen was already in his cot, his back turned to the door, his breathing slow, heavy, and rhythmic. He had turned the desk lamp off, leaving the room illuminated only by the pale moonlight streaming through the window.

Rain stepped out of his boots, pulled off his hoodie, and lay down on his narrow mattress. He pulled the crisp cotton sheet up to his chest, closed his eyes, and let the quiet exhaustion of the day pull him under into a deep, dreamless sleep.

At six o’clock sharp the next morning, the system chimed softly inside his head.

[Daily Quest: Body Before Power - Triggered!]

[Goal Requirements: 100 Push-ups, 100 Sit-ups, 100 Squats, 5km Run]

[Reward: +1 Strength, +1 Endurance]

Rain opened his eyes, tossed his blanket aside, and slipped into his fresh black sweatpants and dark blue t-shirt.

He didn’t make a sound as he stepped out into the misty morning air of the courtyard. The routine was second nature now. He ran the five-kilometer loop around the outer perimeter of the campus grounds in under twenty minutes, his breathing smooth and light, his stride long and powerful. He dropped onto the wet grass behind the gymnasium, knocked out his push-ups, sit-ups, and squats with rapid, clean form, and stood up as the completion chime sounded.

[Daily Quest: Complete!]

[Rewards Applied: +1 Strength, +1 Endurance]

He felt the familiar, warm surge of physical density wash through his frame. He didn’t sit around to admire the numbers. He walked back to his dorm, took a quick shower, changed into a clean dark t-shirt and his new black zip-up hoodie, grabbed his notebook, and headed out for his morning classes.

At nine o’clock, Rain stepped into the large, tiered amphitheater of the Monster Anatomy department.

The room was packed with nearly eighty first-year students, their voices creating a low, steady murmur that echoed off the high stone walls. Glass display cases containing preserved monster organs, skeletal fragments, and dried core nodes lined the side walls, illuminated by soft magical sconces.

Rain walked down the carpeted aisle, looking for an empty seat near the middle row.

Standing at the podium at the front of the hall was Miss Ebony.

She wore a tailored dark charcoal suit with her long, dark hair pinned up in a sharp, professional silver clip. Her sharp, dark eyes swept across the entering students with practiced authority. As Rain stepped toward an open seat in the fifth row, her gaze landed directly on him.

She paused, her hand hovering over a stack of parchment lecture notes. Her dark eyebrows raised slightly.

"Well," Miss Ebony’s clear, sharp voice rang out over the classroom noise, cutting through the chatter effortlessly. "Look who has decided to grace us with his presence. Student Rain."

A ripple of quiet chuckles and light laughter echoed across the amphitheater. A few students turned in their seats to look at him.

Rain didn’t get flustered. He didn’t blush or duck his head. He pulled out the wooden chair, sat down smoothly, and offered Miss Ebony a polite, relaxed smile.

"I had some things to take care of, Miss Ebony," Rain said, his voice even and easy. "But I plan to be fully available going forward."

Miss Ebony studied his face for three long seconds. Her sharp eyes lingered on his upright posture, his broad shoulders, and the calm, steady clarity in his eyes, a stark contrast to the tired boy who had sat in the back row weeks ago. A faint, unreadable glimmer passed through her dark eyes.

She gave a single, curt nod. "See that you are. Missing a week of theory is an expensive habit for anyone."

She turned back to her podium, tapping a glass stylus against a large crystalline projection orb mounted in the center of the desk.

"Silence, please," Miss Ebony commanded, and the room instantly fell dead quiet.

A glowing, three-dimensional projection of a crystalline monster core materialized in the air above her desk, rotating slowly to show its intricate internal lattice.

"Today we move past basic surface taxonomy," Miss Ebony began, her voice crisp and engaging as she walked along the edge of the platform. "We are covering Core Purity and Latent Energy Decay. As prospective hunters, most of you operate under the assumption that a monster core is simply a fixed lump of stored Mana. This is incorrect."

She pointed her stylus at the center of the rotating projection. "A core is an organic energy engine. The purity rating, graded from Tier One down to Tier Four, depends on the host monster’s ambient mana exposure and the structural stability of the rift it inhabited. A Tier One C-rank core, for instance, contains thirty percent more stable energy than a Tier Three C-rank core of the exact same physical weight."

Rain sat up straight, pulling his notebook forward, his pen moving smoothly across the paper.

He listened with genuine, focused interest. Everything she was saying tied directly into what he had experienced inside the C-rank rift. He took precise notes on how latent mana density degraded when a core was extracted without proper insulation, how elemental resonance affected market valuation, and why high-purity cores were required for high-grade skill disk synthesis. The lecture was dense, practical, and fascinating, filling in the theoretical gaps behind the raw numbers he saw on his system screens.

As the two-hour lecture drew to a close, Miss Ebony tapped her stylus twice against the desk, dissolving the projection.

"One final announcement before you are dismissed," she said, looking over the room. "As of midnight yesterday, all first-year class placements have been finalized by the academic board. Homeroom assignments have been posted to your personal student portals. By the end of the day, your terminal will confirm your assigned homeroom teacher, who will conduct your evaluations going forward."

She picked up her papers, setting them into her leather briefcase. "Class dismissed."

The amphitheater erupted into a wave of rustling papers, scraping chairs, and excited chatter as students pulled out their phones and terminals to check their class placements.

Rain packed his notebook into his leather shoulder bag, stood up, and joined the flow of students heading toward the double exit doors.

’Basic Combat with Instructor Tenski is next,’ Rain thought, adjusting his hoodie. ’I need to check in with him before the practical drills start to clear my medical absence.’

He stepped out of the Monster Anatomy building into the bright, midday sunlight, heading down the wide stone promenade toward the eastern training grounds.

He had walked about fifty yards past the central library archway when a faint, prickling sensation brushed against the back of his neck.

It wasn’t a system warning. It was the simple, instinctual awareness of being watched, honed from being on the streets for months after leaving the orphanage. You just learned to know when you were being looked at.

Rain didn’t stop walking. He kept his pace steady, but he casually turned his head slightly to the left, using the reflective surface of a high glass display window on the side of the administrative building to look behind him.

Three figures were walking about twenty paces behind him, moving at the exact same speed.

In the center was Corwin, tall, slicked-back blonde hair, wearing a dark navy guild-track jacket with the jagged iron chain crest stitched over the left lapel. On his left was Petrov, a skinny, sharp-featured boy with a calculating expression, holding a digital tablet under his arm. On his right was Dax, broad-shouldered, thick-necked, with heavy, muscular arms that stretched the sleeves of his dark training shirt.

Rain kept walking for three more steps, a quiet, dry sense of exasperated humor rising in his chest.

’They’ve been checking my route every day for a week,’ Rain realized, a small smirk touching his lips inside his hoodie collar. ’They’ve been waiting near the anatomy building hoping I’d show up eventually.’

He weighed his options for half a second. He could use Flash Step, disappear around the library corner in a fraction of a second, and leave them searching the empty walkways like idiots. Or he could hop on another transport bus and avoid them until the weekend.

Rain stopped dead in his tracks in the middle of the wide, paved promenade.

He turned around smoothly, his broad shoulders squared, his hands resting easily inside the front pocket of his black zip-up hoodie. He stood under the bright midday sun, his blue eyes calm, steady, and completely unreadable.

Corwin, Petrov, and Dax slowed down, stopping ten feet in front of him.

Corwin let out a short, arrogant scoff, a smirk spreading across his handsome, sharp face as he stepped forward, pulling his hands from his pockets.

"Well, well," Corwin said, his voice dripping with condescending amusement. "Look who finally came back to school. We thought you transferred out after that night. We actually know your name now. Rain, isn’t it?"

Rain stood his ground, looking at Corwin’s slicked-back hair with a flat, quiet gaze.

"I assumed you knew a lot more than my name by now," Rain said plainly, his voice even and calm. "Given how much time you three spend obsessing over where I walk."

A sudden flicker of confusion passed over Corwin’s face. The arrogant smirk on his lips twitched, his sharp eyes narrowing as he looked at Rain’s relaxed, upright posture.

Petrov frowned, taking a quick half-step back, while Dax let out a low grunt, his thick, muscular arms flexing as his fingers curled into heavy fists.

They had expected a terrified, skinny F-rank kid who would flinch, look for an exit, or beg for mercy like Peter did, hell like Rain did a week ago. Instead, they were standing in front of a young man whose somewhat broad frame didn’t yield an inch, whose blue eyes held zero fear, zero panic, and zero hesitation.

Rain took one slow step forward, his voice cold, steady, and clear as glass as he looked at each of them in turn.

"Corwin. Petrov. Dax."

Rain named all three of them directly under the bright afternoon sun.

"What’s the problem?" Rain asked softly.