After leaving the hospital ward, Ryan followed a teenager—since all the students here were teenagers. Fin cursed his bad luck, lamenting that he had to accompany Ryan to tour and worrying that he might be implicated in whatever trouble Ryan brought.
As they walked around the training grounds, Fin began to explain their situation. "The news has been spread by the instructor that you've lost your memory, so let me start from the beginning. You see all these teenagers? There are about 60 of us here, and we're the second batch of training. The Viscount is training us to become assassins, spies, and the like—people who can do his dirty work. Most of us were kidnapped from the slums, though a few, like you, came here hoping for a job at the Viscount's estate. Bad luck seems to follow you closely, huh? As for me, I was kidnapped. If I survive this, I might actually thank the Viscount—at least here, I get to eat my fill."
Fin led Ryan to the sleeping quarters, a large bunkhouse divided into separate areas for boys and girls. There are beds arranged on both sides and Fin pointed to the bed that belonged to him.
"Here's the schedule," Fin continued. "We wake up at 5 a.m. sharp. If you're late, you get a bamboo strike. Morning exercises start immediately—jogging, bodybuilding, and so on until 7 a.m. After that, we bathe and have breakfast. You can eat as much as you want—bread and milk. Then we have cultural classes in which they thought as how to read and write and other knowledge such as geography, history. And after that we will have skill class in which they teach us various skills such as escape tactics, poisoning, infiltration, and many more. After lunch, we have sparring class in which we spar with wooden weapons. It hurts, even though they're just made of wood. In the evening, it's weapons training class, followed by supper. After that, we're free to do whatever we want, but fighting is strictly prohibited. The Viscount doesn't want us killing each other or hurting each other that affect the training. Break the rules, and you'll get ten lashes the first time. Do it again, and it's execution."
Fin paused, then added, "Every two months, there's a survival exam. The bottom five are executed as they deemed unworthy and to motivate others to train better if you don't want to die. I doubt even knights training is not as brutally as we do."
Ryan frowned. "Knights? What are they? Are they the Viscount's guards or part of the army?"
Fin looked surprised. "Oh, right, you don't remember. Knights and mages are the real path to nobility for people like us—if we had the talent, that is. Knights can destroy a house with their bare hands, and mages can command fire, wind, water, and more. They're the true way to rise in this world. But most of us don't have that kind of potential, so we ended up here."
Ryan's eyes widened knowing about extraordinary powers are real and wanted to know. "How do you become a knight or a mage?"
Fin hesitated before answering. "Knights and mages usually come from noble families. Becoming a mage requires high talent and attending a mage school to gain knowledge and pass tests. For the people like us, it's pretty much out of reach."
Ryan thought to himself, *It seems the nobles have blocked the path to extraordinary power to ensure no one can threaten their rule.*
As they finished their tour of the camp and returned to the bunkhouse, Fin gave Ryan one final piece of advice. "From now on, don't talk to me. Here's some advice: everyone here wants you dead. You'll have to work ten times harder than the others if you want to survive."
With that, Fin left to join the training, leaving Ryan alone in the sleeping area. Ryan sat on his bunk, deep in thought. *Why haven't I become smarter? Why can't I remember any skills? Why hasn't my body changed? In other stories, the protagonist gets superpowers or becomes incredibly strong after traveling through time by bringing back the ability from other worlds. Why is it so different for me?*
He decided to review his so-called "cheat ability." There were nine stars in his mind that were glowing, and after touching the smallest one, he had traveled to the world of the *Limitless* movie. This meant he could potentially travel to nine different worlds, after returning to kosmos world, the smallest star that was named as limitless star become dim and when he tried to touch the limitless star or other stars again, nothing happened. It seemed he could only travel once. *What's the point of traveling if I can't bring back any powers? Maybe I'm missing something.*
Then, something caught his attention. After eating a full breakfast, he noticed a tiny part of the star had lit up. It was so faint that he might have missed it if he hadn't looked closely. *What does this mean? Will lighting up the whole star allow me to travel again? Or maybe it'll grant me the powers I had in *Limitless*?* He didn't have time to figure it out—everyone here wanted him dead, and he doubted he'd survive the next two-month exam. *This is hell-level difficulty. I guess this is the downside of being the protagonist—always stuck in impossible situations.*
During this time, Ryan also get to look at the body that he was occupied, it was a thin body with black hair, aged around 13-14. It was neither handsome normal well built and from the looks of the body , he can tell that it was malnourished.
As the days passed, the bunkhouse filled with people returning for dinner. Ryan was about to head to the cafeteria when a group of boys blocked his path. The tallest one whose name is Bill, who seemed to be their leader, glared at him with anger. Seeing Bill blocking ryan, other students also looked over here to see what's going to happen next.
"Ryan," he said, "because of you, our already difficult lives have become a living hell. I promise you, I'll make you pay for it in the next exam. During sparring, I'll break your bones one by one. Remember my name—it's Bill, and I'll be your death."
With that, Bill and his group walked away, the others cheering for him and casting looks of anger, hatred, and pity at Ryan. *I guess I'm really unpopular,* Ryan thought. He headed to the cafeteria, grabbed his dinner, and sat down. As soon as he did, everyone around him moved away, leaving him isolated. Ryan wasn't surprised anymore. *What problem has to come will eventually come. I'll just do my best to tackle it.*
He ate voraciously, noticing that his appetite had increased significantly. After finishing, he returned to his bunk, hoping for a good night's rest.Soon two days passed by and He knew he wasn't fully healed yet, and he also knew that no one would go easy on him.Tomorrow would be another grueling day as he will start his training.