Night, Dorm 403.
Natsukawa washed away his fatigue and sat at his desk, opening the laptop that had witnessed his initial struggles. The screen lit up, and a simply designed yet complex interface appeared before him—the Campus Situational Awareness System.
This was his biggest and most precious gain this month, besides points.
Two days ago, while strictly adhering to the system's perverse rules, he finally completed the core framework development of this system and passed repeated tests, ensuring no obvious bugs affected its main functions. After submitting it for system review, the cold prompt in his mind confirmed that he had completed the "cost," and the knowledge named "Elementary Programming Mastery" had completely transformed into his stable ability.
Now, it was time for it to officially go into operation.
The system primarily consisted of several modules:
Data Collection Layer: Based on Python's rq (requests) and bs4 (BeautifulSoup) libraries, several web crawler scripts were written to regularly fetch new posts, replies, and public user posting records from various sections of the school forum. To circumvent anti-crawler measures, he set reasonable access intervals and random User-Agents.
Data Processing and Analysis Layer: This was the most verbose part of the code. He wrote complex text parsing and cleaning logic to extract keywords (such as class, teacher, exam, conflict, points, etc.). Using simple statistical models, he calculated topic popularity, sentiment (positive/negative/neutral), and identified sudden peaks in discussion.
Information Output Layer: Generates visualized reports. These include "Hot Topic Tracking" (displaying the most active discussion topics on the current forum and their popularity trends), "Public Opinion Monitoring" (flagging posts involving sensitive keywords or intense emotions), and "User Behavior Analysis" (flagging users with abnormally high posting frequency or sudden changes in behavior patterns, which helps identify "anomalous individuals" or countermeasures specifically targeting Natsukawa's methods).
Although limited by data sources and algorithms, the system's judgment was far from 100% accurate, more like an advanced "public opinion radar" and "trend indicator." However, it could continuously monitor the entire campus's "public opinion field" 24/7, filtering and refining massive, disorganized information into valuable intelligence clues, allowing Natsukawa to "perceive" the undercurrents beneath the surface. This was undoubtedly a crucial weapon for him in future struggles.
Sure enough, he had just started using it when he discovered posts from some second-year seniors mocking the first-years... Turning off the system interface, Natsukawa's gaze fell on the several small test papers returned today. Math and chemistry were fine; his foundation from his previous life and logical thinking ability allowed him to handle them easily. But as for Japanese language and social studies involving Japanese history, the numerous red circles marking errors were truly unbearable.
"Sigh..." He sighed. The pain point of transmigrating without memories had arrived; he had never studied Japanese language and history at all, at most knowing famous events like the Honnō-ji Incident and the Meiji Restoration. This month's arduous study merely allowed him to stay barely above the red line, avoiding elimination. Although he knew that, according to the "plot," the first midterm exam could be solved by purchasing "past exam papers," he didn't want to place all his hopes on that.
If he were expelled, the system's 20 million debt would have to be repaid immediately. With such a wonderful start, how could he let his future be decided by so-called past papers?
"Wait, before I had the system, I had to study hard, and after I got the system, I still have to study hard. Did the system come for nothing?!"
Becoming a hexagon warrior wasn't urgent, but delaying skill allocation meant genuinely having to hit the books.
Moreover, relying on cheating is not a long-term solution; improving one's own strength is fundamental. Especially these basic academic subjects, which are the cornerstone for understanding this world, integrating into this environment, and even making more complex decisions in the future.
He closed his eyes and communicated with the system light screen in his mind.
"System, exchange for 'Basic Education Knowledge Mastery'."
The light screen flowed, and a new cost appeared:
[Exchange Item: Basic Education Knowledge Mastery (Japanese High School Scope)]
[Required Cost: Daily effective study time (textbooks and designated supplementary books) no less than 4 hours, sustained for 50 natural days. Interruption will reset the calculation.]
"Four hours a day... acceptable." Natsukawa felt relieved internally; this time, it only required time, nothing else.
A faint electric current sensation ran through his mind. Japanese high school, including junior high, curriculum knowledge had entered his mind, as if the system directly copied the knowledge into his brain. As long as he wanted knowledge on a certain topic, the corresponding knowledge would automatically pop up, like a search. But he knew that for the next month, he would have to strictly adhere to this study plan.
And although the knowledge was in his mind, how to use it ultimately required Natsukawa to summarize it himself. This was like an open-book exam; it wasn't enough to just have all the knowledge.
Looking at the deep night outside the window, Natsukawa's eyes were sharp and clear. The 1 million points received, the launch of the Situational Awareness System, the bridge built with Class B, and the opportunities brought by stirring up the grade's dynamics—these were all his accumulated capital.
And now, he was about to initiate a plan to compensate for his shortcomings. He would use the system to become a true hexagon warrior, preparing for future challenges... The next day at noon, as he entered the classroom during lunch break, the afternoon sunlight streamed through the gaps in the curtains, forming long strips of light that quietly stretched across the desks. When Natsukawa pushed open the classroom door, he saw Sakura Airi curled up in a seat at the edge of a light strip, like a small squirrel hiding in the shade to cool off.
He naturally approached, and as he leaned down, the fabric of his school uniform jacket lightly brushed the edge of her desk. "Sakura," he called, his voice deliberately lowered, and a warm breath inadvertently brushed her earlobe.
Sakura trembled suddenly, her mechanical pencil making an abrupt mark on her notebook. She looked up, her blue eyes behind thick glasses widening slightly, and her earlobes turned a transparent pink at a visible speed.
"Can you lend me some money?" He straightened up, his tone as casual as if discussing the weather.
This sentence seemed to activate a switch in her body. Sakura immediately sat up straight, fumbling anxiously for the student terminal in her pocket, her fingertips slipping twice on the screen. "Classmate Natsukawa, are you out of money already?" Her voice held genuine anxiety, as if she were the one in distress.
When Natsukawa said, "How much do you have?" her movements on the terminal suddenly slowed. Her eyelashes drooped, casting small shadows beneath her eyes. "I have... fifty thousand points left," she reported softly, as if handing over all her provisions.
"Lend me forty thousand first."
The air froze. Her fingers tightened slightly around the terminal, her knuckles turning white. Her gaze flickered between the remaining numbers on the screen and the boy's calm profile—she might not have any income for a long time, and she didn't want to eat the mountain vegetable set meal. However, three seconds later, she firmly pursed her lips, opened the transaction interface, entered the number, and pressed the confirm button.
"The points... have gone through," she said softly, with a hint of exhaustion in her voice.
Just then, she heard a very faint sigh from above her. Natsukawa put his terminal into his pocket, his gaze sweeping across the clear sky outside the window. "This is good," his voice returned to its usual clarity, "Now, no matter who asks you for money, you can righteously say that you don't have any either."
Sakura was stunned. Her previous panic, reluctance, and determination still lingered in her pupils, but now they slowly gave way to light, like rain clouds blown away by the wind. She finally looked up, meeting his gaze fully for the first time. Those blue eyes, which always evaded, now resembled a clear sky after rain, with something soft gently rippling at their depths.
The sunlight happened to move to her desk corner, illuminating the bottle of strawberry milk she had bought at noon and hadn't finished, making it crystal clear.