God's Eyes

From his mother, Jason heard many fairy tales about all kinds of godly weapons, indestructible armors, immortal reagents, Holy inscriptions, and terrifying beasts that could split the heavens and destroy mountains with a single breath.

He would have never imagined that these fairy tales could be true but at least some truth was hidden in every lie and Jason was sure that some blacksmith-masters would be able to smith and manufacture mighty weapons, armors, and much more.

He always admired the fairy tales about strong and magnificent heroes, saving the universe with their godly weapons and different than others, Jason was always sad that the craftsmen who forged the god-killing weapons were extras, almost negligible for the whole tale.

Thinking about these occupations, Jason´s curiosity increased more and more.

In the end, he decided to look online, searching for general information about lifestyle occupations and their requirements.

Upon doing deeper researches, Jason found out that the requirements to learn either of the 3 basic lifestyle occupations were both easy and difficult at the same time to fulfill.

The easier requirements Jason could fulfill were a peak-intermediate mana mastery and a certain mana sensitivity outside the body.

Jason wasn't exactly sure what peak intermediate mastery meant, but he was still confident that he had already reached that a long time ago, as even his teacher praised his mana control.

Considering the fact that Mr.Greil was from a large family and additional from Canir, that praise was worth quite a bit, which caused Jason´s confidence about his control over mana to soar even higher.

Another easy demand was one's knowledge, which had to be deep in the lifestyle-occupation.

For Blacksmithing that would be knowing everything about ores, ingots, heat, smelting process, tempering, quenching, sharpening, and so on.

Jason could just read the required books and memorize them after a second or third re-read at most.

This was only able because he refined his brain, otherwise he would have to read books more often to memorize them completely, which would be a hassle.

But there was one main problem…

The costs!!

Not only would purchasing the books of each of the three basic lifestyle occupations be extremely expensive, but some couldn't even be purchased by commoners which was ridiculous in his opinion.

Additionally, each of these three occupations would require one to learn everything from scrap which would require experimenting with many ores, herbs, mana stones/core, and so on.

Materials were expensive and it would take a long time to even reach the 0th rank of the particular occupation, also called "Apprentice".

Furthermore, there were not many teachers, instructing students, because they were either too expensive or would not teach students without gaining other benefits.

This meant average or maybe even above average families wouldn't be able to hire an alchemist for individual tutorings.

It was easier for high-ranked schools to hire blacksmiths, alchemists, and runemasters because they were able to give them more benefits due to their good connections.

And that was, where the school´s official thread came into play.

Jason read that there would be a Rank 3 blacksmith, alchemist, and runemasters at school, giving lectures for a certain amount of time.

Rank 3 lifestyle-occupations were also called Intermediate-Blacksmiths/Alchemists/Runemasters, while the ranking was as following.

Rank 0: Apprentice, Rank 1: Beginner, Rank 2: Basic, Rank 3: Intermediate, and so on.

Intermediate-Occupations could already produce Grade-2 Weapons, Reagents, and magic circles which could accumulate a vast amount of resources and credits.

Being a Rank 3 would be considered the average for the Artisan-alliance which governs the three occupations, as the average member was at the 3rd Rank.

There were many lower and higher ranked lifestyle-Artisans but most would be stuck at Rank-3 and never enter higher ranked due to their low determination, ambition, and most likely low control over mana.

Rank 3 also meant for Blacksmiths that they would be able to craft mana weapons with the help of Runemasters, which was definitely nothing to scoff at and Jason wondered who their lectures would hold.

But there was also a test one had to pass to enter the lectures of the three individuals.

Their test would question one's knowledge, control over mana, and even the aptitude with a practical test.

Jason found blacksmithing and alchemy extremely interesting and after reading the description of inscriptions and runes, he fell in love with all three occupations, causing him to ponder for which test he should apply.

He questioned himself for quite some time until he noticed a certain piece of information, causing his mood to heighten.

Each of the tests was at a different time and wouldn´t overlap with each other.

As such Jason could enter all of the tests which pleased him and maybe he would be able to pass at least one of the tests.

If that happened, he would be able to get lectured by a Rank 3 Artisan.

(Author note: I decided to combine the three occupations into Artisans once I need to name them at once)

Jason happily registered himself for all three tests and each exam would start on Friday, while there was 4 hours time between each of them.

After thinking for a moment, he concluded that they made this deliberately, so everyone could give each lifestyle-occupation a try.

Once he had registered himself, he was notified what he should know for the theoretical test and a bunch of books was suggested for each of the occupations, with a link to download the files for free thanks to the Artisan-towers generosity.

Jason laughed while thinking that his school was really evil.

There were more than ten books for every occupation.

Previously Jason thought that his school wanted to give each student a try for every occupation but applying for every lecture was suicidal, considering that each book had more than 600 pages.

Each test would consist of more than 6000 pages, filled with knowledge, while all three tests had concluded more than 18.000 pages, which was a ridiculous number.

But Jason was only smiling, with greed in his eyes.

`Thank you for the free books!!` He thought in his mind as a sly smile appeared on his face.

Jason was aware why it was so hard for average students to learn one of the basic lifestyle-occupations without a teacher, even if one had a high mana control and enough credits to purchase the herbs.

Prescriptions, Experience from dozens of generations, and knowledge could only be acquired by the rich.

Right now there were over 30 books Jason wouldn't be able to acquire normally inside his quantum bracelet storage.

Not being able to digest all the information provided? Don´t f**k with bookworm Jason!!

There were still slightly more than 6 days left for him and if needed, he would just skip school.

Before Jason decided to do something like that, he would message his teacher, which he did immediately after considering his chances.

Mr.Greil was different from the normal teacher and Jason was aware of that.

After explaining his situation to him, the only thing he got as an answer was.

"Attend the morning lessons, because I´ll be able to solve some unanswered questions. I'll write you out for the afternoon lessons."

This astonished Jason a little bit because even if Mr.Greil was not a real teacher, wasn't he too chilled about his decision to pick all three tests?

Wouldn´t he try to change his decision because it was dumb?

But Till Greil wouldn't do something like that as he knew that Jason was extremely mature for his age.

As a teacher, he wanted Jason to figure out the limits of his ambition on his own.

If he could pass all tests, that would only mean he is good enough to learn all occupations from their theories and not that he was talented in all of them.

Knowing the basics of all occupations was a must for all offsprings from big families and Seron already knew most information, which however would not hinder him in acquiring new knowledge.

Seron would also join the three tests and he would have to solve them with flying colors, as his master, Till would be disappointed if Seron would fail.

But to be honest, this possibility was marginal low.

It was only 3 pm when Jason opened the first book and he entered his particular kind of zone as he started to devour the content without caring for his surrounding.

Time passed and it was 7 pm when he was shaken out of his zone-like state.

Suddenly, he felt that someone picked him up as he was thrown over a muscle-packed shoulder and Jason immediately knew that it was Greg.

"Jason, we called you a few times and you want to tell me that you couldn't hear us because you read a book?!?! Don´t fool me!!" He said while Jason was still laying over his shoulder.

When Greg entered the living room like this, Jason was immediately embarrassed about the situation, as everyone could see him like that.

"Sorry!!! But let me down !!!!" Jason almost shouted and Greg put him down.

Just as he was about to sit down, everyone began to laugh out loud as the sight was just too funny to look at.

`Arghhh… so embarrassing!!` Jason looked straight on his table without looking at anyone and he wouldn't be able to look into someone's eyes right now.

It took everyone quite a while to calm down and dinner began with a few chuckles remaining.

Jason had not looked up a single time and when dinner was over, he excused himself as soon as possible to run up into his room.

Gabriella and Malia found this reaction cute, while Mark looked somehow disappointed?

Jason had to calm down and looking at the holographic screen, he noticed that he had already read three books.

He remembered almost all parts and rereading it another time would probably be enough to completely memorize them, which shocked him.

Jason admired his own reading speed and memory as he silently thanked his teacher for the opportunity he received to refine his brain, even if it was extremely painful.

Furthermore, his eyes were also important for this feat, as his reading speed was solely thanks to his eyesight and Jason also silently thanked his mother.

After he calmed down, he practiced the Heaven's Hell five-strand helix before he continued reading the large batch of books in his library.