News of Ren's talent spread quickly.
By the time Rina-sensei reached the Director's office and relayed the details, Director Ken was sitting absolutely upright in his chair.
A talent that let you master anything after a single viewing? In any field, in any application — the implications were staggering.
Rina-sensei hadn't even finished explaining before she pivoted to the proposal that had been tabled in their last faculty meeting: a dedicated Special Class, purpose-built for students with exceptional and unusual talents.
The Director didn't deliberate long. He'd been thinking about this student cohort for weeks anyway. There were a number of unusually gifted kids across the neighboring schools — now he had the perfect justification to consolidate them.
"Approved. I'll handle the logistics. You'll be running it."
A flash of genuine joy crossed Rina-sensei's face. This was everything she'd hoped for. A group of extraordinary seedlings to nurture — if she couldn't make something of that, she might as well hand in her resignation.
"I won't let you down," she said, and almost ran back to her classroom.
The students noticed the change in her the moment she walked in. Something good had clearly happened.
"Alright — if you're done with your forms, turn them in. Placements are being processed now." She didn't explain the source of her good mood. The Special Class announcement would come from the administration in its own time.
She started leafing through the collected forms, sorting by chosen path. A few of them made her pause with pleasant surprise.
But after Ren's form, everything else was just a lower note.
"For now, it's self-study time. Start packing your things if you want — you'll be moving to new classrooms shortly."
She gathered the sorted forms and stepped out again.
The moment she was gone, organized studying promptly collapsed into general gossip. Who would be in what class? Would close friends stay together? These were the questions that mattered most when you were seventeen.
Only a small fraction of the class actually cracked a book. Ren was among them — though he wasn't studying in any conventional sense. In the time it took his classmates to finish debating who'd end up in Martial Arts Class B together, he'd worked through every textbook he'd brought.
With Jianjigu running passively, the knowledge didn't just enter his head — it rooted there, fully integrated.
He finished the last book and put his phone away out of boredom. Then he thought about it, reconsidered, and pulled the phone back out.
There was a short-video app on it — the kind with a black musical note icon. Ren opened it, searched for martial arts techniques, and started watching.
If it's on the screen, I can learn it.
He found creators covering fist techniques, footwork, weapon forms, and combinations with half-explained power-generation principles buried underneath. Ren absorbed all of it — the stated techniques and the implied ones. He didn't skip anything. Didn't matter if it was repeated. If someone posted it, he watched it.
In thirty minutes, the martial arts knowledge stacked in his head had multiplied several times over.
He even caught himself guessing that if someone uploaded an immortal cultivation tutorial right now, he'd probably nail that too.
God-tier talent, he thought, completely without modesty.
Two class periods melted away like that. When the bell for third period rang and Rina-sensei came back with a roster in her hand, the class snapped to attention.
"When I call your name, gather your things and head to your new classroom."
She worked through the list efficiently. Names were called, students jumped up, hugs and panicked comparisons were exchanged across the room when friends discovered they'd been separated or luckily grouped together.
Ren listened and waited. His name didn't come up.
The list kept shrinking.
Finally, at the very end: "Ren Isana — Special Class. You're coming with me."
The room froze.
Special Class? The phrase had never appeared in any school document or conversation any of them had ever heard.
"Sensei, what's the Special Class?"