Raising Capital (5)

I brightly smiled as I managed to negotiate around nine trillion Aris for five workbooks in total. Those suckers with big wallets would probably never figure out most of it was an act.

The hidden feature, I could use absorb in the dimensional library to finish the workbooks. I mean- who said I couldn't cheat my way through? When both Luke and Alex barely possessed enough energy to continue the study session, I sneakily opened the dimensional library under the table. Tapping on my screen to activate the feature, my mind was brilliantly overwhelmed by the tremendous amount of information flowing inside.

Taking advantage of Luke barely able to open his eyes, I quickly began to fill in the empty sections inside the workbook. Sneaking a peek at Alex, his eyes were slightly closed, softly groaning like he unconsciously fell asleep. Both of them had to stay up for several nights, eventually leading to a month of lacking sleep. Once I finished writing the answers down, I tugged Luke's sleeve, trying to show him the completed workbooks.

"Did you finish the section I explained to you?" He checked the work.

"I completed five workbooks," I slid the books to him.

"You really did," his eyes widened.

"You used the dimensional library, didn't you?" Luke hit the mark.

"Nobody said I couldn't use it," I pointed out.

"You used it to the limit," he knew.

"Why not?" I shrugged.

"It was supposed to be the last resort," he sighed.

"Let's move onto the remaining workbooks," he pulled them out of his inventory.

"You look really tired. How long have you been doing this for?" Ethan pitied Luke.

"Around two months inside this room," Luke opened a workbook.

"I can help with the tutoring, you can get some rest for a few hours," he offered.

"Accept his offer, we need to continue this for another month," Alex sleepily mumbled.

"If it's around four hours," Luke reluctantly accepted.

The next second, Luke immediately flopped onto the sleeping bag in the gaming section, making me feel a tang of guilt. I mean- I could never understand. His family was rich enough to bribe the school into letting me graduate.

I slumped into my chair as Alex used the rest of his energy to explain the current situation to Ethan.

Ethan seemed nervous, rubbing his hand on his wrist. He nearly reached out his hand, and quickly took it back. It was already too late. He watched Alex taking large steps towards Luke and nearly fainting afterwards.

When he turned to me, I awkwardly shifted on my chair, admitting that although I was trying to extort money from them, I wasn't exactly sane for the past two months.

The money was what helped, making me more alert and reminding me of the waterpark. My mind had been tortured from the first day to the extent that everything became a miserable blur afterwards.

I stared at the table as Ethan slid into Luke's usual seat, quickly flipping through the pages of the workbook again. I wasn't used to seeing this side of him, being unusually serious. How did all my fake friends manage to have decent grades? Sometimes, it was unfair, I never saw them studying before. Unexpectedly, Ethan was pretty decent in explaining the first chapter of the book, nearly resembling Luke.

However, my brain was too overloaded from the sudden inflow of the five workbooks. I continued to smile, pretending all the information wasn't bouncing off my brain. If he was Luke, he would instantly know I didn't understand a single thing he was saying. My ears were bleeding from the extreme form of studying. Going through the guidelines provided by Alex, he started to ask me some questions to test my understanding.

"I don't know. What subject is this?" I wondered.

"You haven't been listening to a single thing?" Ethan was startled.

"I was listening, but I had no idea what you were talking about," I turned away.

"Where did I lose you?" He went over the first couple of pages.

"The first second sentence," I was being generous.

"The first sentence was barely related to the real material," he double checked.

"I didn't understand a single word in the first sentence. I don't know the vocabulary for it," I explained.

"How?" Ethan was in disbelief.

"My brain is dead. I can't recollect the normal set of languages I know right now," I needed everything to be translated.

As I predicted, it took four hours to go through the first page. I could tell Ethan was close to giving up on me, getting frustrated in the process of recalling the very basic fundamentals. When my brain was in a better state, I was able to skip the fundamentals coming from elementary school and go straight to the first year of middle school. But my mind was quickly degrading, nearly reaching the level that kindergarteners learnt.

"May I ask about the progress?" Luke returned to the office, appearing more refreshed.

"We're on the second page," Ethan found me hopeless.

"This pace is faster than normal based on Rika's condition," Luke tried to encourage him.

"Sometimes it takes the entire day to go through one page," he added.

"I can extend the offer, so you can get more sleep when you start to get tired," Ethan felt sorry for Luke.

"We accept your offer," Alex immediately answered.

Luke's marble vibrated again, showing a call was coming from an unfamiliar person. When he accepted the call, both of us were initially confused. However, Luke seemed to know the person on the screen, "granduncle?"

"How is the progress? Is my grandniece still at risk from getting held back a year?" Luke's granduncle asked.

"Who is that person?" I whispered into Luke's ear.

"Our granduncle from my grandmother's side. Charles' grandfather," he explained.

"We're a month behind schedule," Luke quickly faced him.

"The information going around was optimistic," Luke's granduncle was disappointed.

Since this conversation seemed like it would last a while, I used my workbooks as a pillow to begin to sleep. Unfortunately, Luke's granduncle instantly noticed, "no, you can't sleep. We barely have any time remaining. I'm sending Charles here to help."

"Can't everyone give up on me? I really don't mind repeating a year," I was overworked.

"How much Aris do you want? I know you want more money for your waterpark," Luke's granduncle got desperate.

"Three trillion Aris for two workbooks, that was the rate so far," I smiled.

"I completed the workbooks with the deal attached to them," I added.

"Three workbooks, a trillion for each of them," he was stingy with money.

"That works too," I smiled brighter.