My Bothersome Life

Spending Points

"Well, I think you're putting way too much mana into your visualizations Rika." Luke started off.

"I used to be like that when I was born, but I was told that you have to pour in a small fraction of mana from what you actually visualize in order to get the result that you want." Luke held a small ball of powerful blue fire in his left hand.

Listening to what Luke told me, I poured in a tiny bit of mana to fuel a small ball of fire onto my right hand. When the ball of fire was on my hand, it resembled a very tall bonfire with a small base rather than the small ball of fire that Luke was holding in his hand.

It was better than the day before, but there was still something really strange about this 'small ball of fire'. I quickly erased the large ball of fire in my hand with my sigh of disappointment.

"Since your mana is very large, try putting only a drop of your mana instead of pouring your mana into your visualization." Luke suggested.

I imagined pouring a tiny drop of my mana with the vision of a small fire that burned on top of a candlestick. I almost jumped from excitement when a small ball of fire lightly danced on top of my hand.

'Luke was actually useful for once!' I smiled as the fire powerfully roared with its compact size.

I quickly erased the fireball with a small wave to create another one to make sure it wasn't a fluke. Sure enough, it wasn't! I hugged Luke in thanks and let him return to the library while I practiced until it was time to go to bed.

Today was the day of the exam where it would be an good opportunity to earn some points. After smoothly finishing the theoretical part of the exams from absorbing all those books, we moved on to the practical part of the exam.

Surprisingly, Luke didn't drag me to his extra study sessions during this past week because he knew how hard I was practicing in order to control my mana for the exam.

I felt myself getting better at controlling my mana as Daniel started to move on from the mana control classes to more advanced spells during class.

As usual, I aced the physical education part with Luke as we had a flying race that resembled track and field from my past life.

Now it was time for the mana control exam. The exam was relatively simple. I had to pour in enough mana to make sure it produced whatever number Daniel called out onto the machine.

"Five thousand." Daniel yelled.

I imagined putting only five tiny drops of mana into the machine. My eyes glowed from satisfaction when the machine showed a number of nine thousand.

'Well close enough!' I cheered inside my heart.

"Well done! You didn't break the machine this time, so I'm going to specially reward you 50 000 points for your success." Daniel proudly clapped.

The monitor displayed:

Helena and Alex: 25 000 points

Rika and Luke: 400 000 points

Michelle and Allan: 19 000 points

Strangely, everyone almost fainted in surprise of the results, which also included Luke! Although, I did have to admit that I wouldn't have been able to get those results without absorbing all those books with the dimensional library.

The reason why the other pairs received such a low amount of points was because Luke and I got first place for every single subject. This was how the point system was extremely bias towards the already wealthy students with the most points.

I did feel sorry for Ellen and Shelly, but I could always buy them food as they have done for me previously.

'Now let's move to a better room with actual beds inside them!' I raised my arm in the air in celebration.

Once Luke and I returned back to our cozy room, I playfully winked to Luke, "See~. I told you I studied really hard this week."

I grabbed the tablet and happily hummed while upgrading the room to a big room with a turning wall which split the room in half. It was a large twenty-meter room with luxurious bathrooms with included both a Jacuzzi and a shower. The closets were wide as it was three meter squared with twenty hangers inside each closet.

My eyes sparkled as the best part was that all this cost 90,000 points!

It was nice being rich with points for once. After I upgraded the room, I passed the tablet onto Luke. Luke instantly decided to buy two luxurious king sized beds packaged with things like pillows and blankets. Another thing I saw Luke buy were some necessities that we both needed like pyjamas, toothbrushes, cups and the list went on.

By the time, we finished buying all the stuff we thought we needed, we were still left with 95,000 points!

'So, this was how it felt to be rich with points~.' I happily smiled while I laid down on my new comfy bed.

Currently both Luke and I were mentally exhausted after the long dilemma of what to buy. Luke soon left the room to go to the cafeteria for dinner ahead of me while I decided to take a short break inside our new luxurious room. Another reason that I stayed was to get the chance to open the dimensional library to start preparing for the next exam to earn more points.

I grabbed a book from the library that covered this month's material and tried to absorb the material. However, I couldn't absorb the material!

"Why isn't the absorption working?" I asked the guide.

[You can only absorb a maximum of two books per day for one week once a month]

[Notice: If you absorb one book per day, you can keep absorbing books for two weeks straight every month]

'Of course, there was a setback! I knew it was too good to be true. Now I actually had to study for my exams.' I internally cried.

Thankfully, the school didn't announce any exams coming up soon or else I would have been doomed.

Ever since they started the partner switching thing, I knew that even though they didn't announce it, there was a 99% chance there was an exam next week.

How was I going to explain to Luke how I got these marks when he figures out that I've haven't been studying?

It was time to make a plan!

Plan A: 5% chance of working - I could get Shelly and Ellen cover for me

Plan B: 50% chance of working - Tell Luke the truth

Plan C: 95% chance of working - Tell Luke that I cheated in a very unique way

Plan D: 70% chance of working - Do nothing and hope that Luke makes decent assumptions on his own

'Yup. Plan D seemed the best!' I concluded over my other poor options.

Now that I was finished with my plan, I headed towards the cafeteria and ordered something cheap while trying to not look suspicious.

I ordered a small sandwich that cost about 40 points as I didn't want to spend extravagantly because we had a high chance of earning minus points next time.

"Hey Rika!" Shelly came up to me.

"Hey Shelly! Why isn't Ellen with you?"

"She's studying with Alex to earn more points next week."

I started to feel kind of guilty from using my cheat, but you have to do what you ought to do in order to survive!

"By the way, why are you ordering that small sandwich when you have a lot of points?"

How do I explain that I'm sure I'll earn minus points next week?

"I'm just not feeling that hungry today," I awkwardly smile.

Shelly stared at me for a while as her eyes glinted with clear suspicion, "Ok."