Sayonara Mother!

As I closed my eyes, a soft whoosing sound flew around my ears. I tried to reawaken to see what it was, but my brain must've already shut off all muscle activity. I panicked before I felt a fluffy goo flow up my nose, and I fell unconscious faster than movies depict victims of chloroform.

"Are you sure that this will actually help? He could just end up expelling it, and then all our work will be for nothing."

"Of course it will work. When have you seen me fail to integrate?"

"That doesn't matter, you know that this one is different. Besides, your predecessor failed numerous times."

"Well I'm not them. Even if the number of candidates has dropped exponentially in the last few centuries, I've not failed with any of them."

"Then do it quickly. He's becoming more conscious."

I woke up surrounded by a dark cloud, the gas filling my room, and turning anything it touched to a monochrome version. I got out of bed, and saw something that if I had missed it, would've been that being's first failure.

Job Class [Shadow Mage] has reached level 17! You have yet to pick your Levels 5, 10, and 15 Bonus Skills.

"JAMES! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING STILL ASLEEP?! GET YOUR ASS UP!"

My mother's booming voice echoed throughout the house. I scrambled and desperately put on some clothes, whipped down to where Lucan normally is, and came face to face with someone unfamiliar.

"Your failure to be punctual has solidified my decision. This woman is a representative of the local Boarding School. Maybe they will teach you how to not be such a spoiled brat. I'm sick and tired of having a child where all they do is sit around and don't contribute to the family business at all. I thought I was raising you to be a perfect work horse for me, but apparently not." My mother ranted.

"Ummm, if you don't mind, can I go now?" I asked. "You act like I don't know that this is what you have been thinking. I could see it in your eyes this whole time. I know that you just wanted a big strong son so that you could retire in peace. So that you didn't have to work in the field anymore. So that you could pass on my dead father's responsibilities onto me. So that YOU get to have the life that YOU want. I've had what I wanted to take packed away for a while now, just waiting for the final straw. The straw that broke toppled the load."

"Well it's nice to see we are on the same page. Go now, and come back when you're nice and ready to return and work. Here's your acceptance letter."

I snatched it from her hands, and threw it into a little pocket dimension portal I had made. With the advent of many skills and job class levels, I was able to fit most of my stuff into the pocket dimension.

Now, dear students who may have been forced to read about my life story, this may seem a shock, as even though the last time I wrote in my journal was about 3 years ago, when I was 12, my mother seemed to be the loving, caring mother that a lot of people have. So, the switch to "bitchy abusive mom" is unnatural. Although, what the poor messenger didn't know, as she looked upon this unnerving scene, was that we had preemptively set this encounter up. Also, my journal got lost between my bed and the wall, so I wasn't able to write in it. My mother and I had started facing huge financial troubles, especially with the local mafia who demanded a protection deposit from everyone in their territory. My father had left to go to appeal to the capital of our region of the Sefranciya Empire, Efluevia. He wanted to ask the king's cabinet to send some armed guards to our town to exterminate the mafia, and confirm that another crime syndicate wasn't going to take its place. However, the journey to Efluevia is long and treacherous, so in the time it takes my father to get there, and to return with the armed guards if he was successful is around a year, enough time for us to run out of savings to pay the mafia. The trick is, when the mafia knows you're out of money, they don't stop squeezing. A huge difference between Polynia and my old world is that enslaving children is a horribly common replacement for physical cash. The second piece of the puzzle is that if the parent of a student of the DA (Darabash Academy) effectively evicts their child, the DA is obligated to house and feed the child. So, to avoid me being sold into slavery, my mother had to put up a front that she has wanted me gone for a very long time, so the DA feels that it must kee me safe from harm.

Also, because I just know that my life is going to be studied, I'm going to be a bastard and not fully explain my plans as much as this. Deal with it.

"As your parent is preventing you from living with them, we at the Darabash Academy will provide room and board for as long as you are a student. Once you graduate, we expect you to live your own life, and we will not give any handouts for past students." Explained the admissions officer, while dragging my hand behind her, as she all but ran toward the direction of the Academy.

"I understand Miss. I have faith in myself that I will easily use the knowledge from your academy to effectively provide for my own living after my graduation." I responded, as she turned back with a look of minor disgust.

"I'm sure you will fit right in with the other students!" As she switched her expression back to a customer service smile.

After two agonizing hours of walking after the initial exchange, after which not a word was uttered, we swung open the creaky wooden doors with a large "D" on one door, and an "A" on the other. As I walked through, I wondered what would actually happen here. In those two lonely hours, I realized that I had always thought that education in Polynia would be just like my home world, structured, and standardized. I realized that I was walking into something that I was completely unprepared for, and the thought of that shook my very core. Must've been something associated with my new Blessings and Curses, as that had never happened in my 87 years of life, however split into 72 and 15. Either way, I'm eager to see what awaits me, and how what I've done on my own measures up to what others know. Oh shoot, I forgot to pick my skills. Whatever. I'm freaking tired.