Maybe, I overestimated my own intelligence.

  Ever since the day I realized there was a chance to save Kiyara – the tragic heroine of the novel I’d been reborn into; I threw myself into studying what you would call primary material in this world. Things every child my age or higher learned at community education centres, but also the heavier stuff, the critical knowledge: details about deviants, the collapse and how old concepts like nation, borders and culture had all crumbled to dust.

  But that wasn't the difficult part. Most of it lined up with what I already knew from the novel, and so it felt like revisiting a test I’d already taken. Like, the origin of deviants and collapse of humanity.

  In the novel, the deviants originated after a unique virus swept across the globe. Its mortality rate was slow, but its speed of transmission was unlike anything humanity had ever faced. The year was 2065 and half of the global population had already contracted the virus. With technology at its peak, a pharmaceutical company named Xeno came forward with a vaccine, advertised boldly as “the miracle drug of the new human era.”

  It was a miracle. The reports they released described it as nothing short of a once-in millennium breakthrough. Not only did the drug provide immunity to the virus. It supposedly granted immunity to nearly ninety percent of known viral and bacterial stains. It was a discovery that had opened the stairs of immortality to human beings.

  The world didn’t hesitate. Under the banner of a newly formed united health organisation, everyone agreed to a mass vaccination program. It was an unprecedented display of co-operation, charity and humanity. Due to that, no human was exempt. And it worked. The threat of virus was erased, and for six months humanity lived as if it had taken its first step toward immortality.

  But only six months. After that, a catastrophic event triggered. The first case appeared. A case that dragged humanity to its knees and to the brink of extinction.

  The first incident reportedly took place in Acirema. A man at work began complaining of body aches, headaches and an unquenchable thirst. His coworkers told him to go home and rest, but before he could leave, it began. His body convulsed. Bones stretched and thickened. His skull reshaped, elongated and angular. Its skin was a sickly shade of whitish yellow, almost resembling the flesh of a newborn, stretched over its inhuman form.

  Before their eyes, the man turned into a two metres tall monster.

  Like a mad beast loosed from a cage, he pounced on his colleagues, tearing through them with feral violence. By the time it was killed, a hundred people were dead. The military intervened, but even they couldn't subdue normally, and had to bomb the entire site to bring it down.

  The incident sent shockwaves across the world. News spread like fire, the officials couldn't hide it. Theories ran wild, governments scrambled to suppress the truth, but it leaked regardless. And then came the second incident. This time, two people had transformed.

  It happened in a poverty-stricken nation, where the casualties turned out to be five hundred people. But that was only the beginning. The true chaos began when more and more humans started transforming.

  The turning point came when investigators uncovered a disturbing link. When they examined remains of the first wave of people who had undergone mutations, they found that most of them had been part of the clinical trials conducted by the company for their miracle drug.

  This revelation sparked a massive outcry. Protests erupted, cities burned, and anarchy spread unchecked. Yet, none of it changed the fact that people kept mutating.

  The creatures born from those mutations were beyond anything humanity had faced. Their skin was so dense it could withstand direct fire from 90 mm rounds and even rocket launchers barely scratched them. The military was forced to escalate, deploying heavy bombs and even nuclear warheads just to bring down.

  But the scariest aspect was their adaptive ability. They evolved faster to adapt to new things. You hit them with a 150lb bomb, they would evolve so that they could survive. Then 500lb, or 100lb and at one point even conventional bombs would hardly damage them, While, their claws could shear through the hardest metals and even, by chance they lost limbs, they regenerated them with frightening ease.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  These abominations, once born as men and now became something else entirely. A new species that preyed upon humans.

  Thus, the humans named them DEVIANTS.

  The creatures that dragged humanity into its first great civilizational collapse.

  …

  This information lined up neatly with the history of this world. From that first incident in 2065, nearly one hundred and fifty years had crawled by, and humanity had managed to survive. In the year 2215, the grand political structures, the nation's people once fought and died for, were gone. Borders, race, religion — all of it collapsed like sandcastle at high tide.

  What replaced them? Corporations, of course. The technology giants used capital and technology to become rulers of humanity. They researched the deviants, trained combatants and fought them as last shield and sword of humanity

  The remaining human settlements were split into zones parcelled out like corporate property. They were governed and maintained by the five Major Corporations: LineaCorp, the biggest corporation; Kovatek industries; Tianming Jiyin biotech; Mirai shin Consortium; and finally, Atmatech systems- the once responsible for zone 010, where I lived.

  And all of this wasn’t exactly hard to grasp. The entrance exam for the Spear of Aegis Institute included a history section, so I was confident I could handle that part.

  But the real nightmare was the sciences. As technology advanced, so had the sciences and mathematics that formed the backbone of this so-called “new human era.”

  And me? I sucked at mathematics. No matter how many hours I poured into it, everything just went over my head. Seriously, what the heck is a Neo-quadratic function? And why in this world was that kind of thing showing up in the textbooks for ten years old?

  I mean, I remembered algebra, geometry, all that basic stuff from past life. But this? This was like trying to wrestle a bouncing boulder. Honestly, I thought that regaining my past memories meant I would turn into some kind of genius, like those isekai protagonists who master the entire magic system as a toddler?

  Reality check. Nope

  I had no clue. Forget mathematics, just the sheer volume of data a ten old had to cover was enough to feel good about the world in my memories. Talk about science fiction overkill.

  All that excitement, that confidence that I was going to breeze through the entrance exam? Gone. Evaporated.

  And there was another detail I had completely forgotten to even think about.

  In this world, humanity couldn't stop advancing, the constant threat of deviants; the fast-evolving species, hung over our heads. Education and research became humanity’s lifeline. Naturally, the most capital and respect circled around these fields.

  Because of that, most zones had passed extensive education policies. I don’t know if it was the same everywhere, but here in Zone 010, Atmatek had made it mandatory. The policy divided education into three phases: Preliminary phase, intermediate phase and the advance phase.

  Thus, once a child was three years of age, he had to be enrolled in a community education centre run by the corporation. The preliminary phase covered fundamentals of the new era, focusing on history, new technology and ethos of this era. They provided not only education but technical skills. This cycle lasted till the age of twelve.

  After that came the intermediate phase, children were meant to take an all-zone exam (which they have to apply a year before.) The all-zone exam was meant to filter the best from rest and depending on your performance, you’d be assigned an education institution. A good rank meant you would get an advanced and popular institution. Not that different from the real world.

  The intermediate cycle lasted three years. This was then followed by an advance phase which I had been eyeing – The Spear of Aegis Institute. In other words, I had made a deep miscalculation.

  Honestly, the light novel never covered this part or maybe I just don’t remember reading about it. Talk about deep. The complex system and work load really have me in peril. And, I had forgotten about the whole intermediate phase until father mentioned it.

  And that had me by the neck. I had been thinking I’d just go with the flow till age of fifteen, master the basics, then focus on the big one. But now? Now I couldn’t help but worry. I had to get a good rank. I couldn’t risk failing.

  Though from another angle, this was also an opportunity. If I managed to get into a good education institution through the all-zonal exam, I could use the recommendation system to get in edge in applying at Spear of Aegis later.

  Now the only thing left for me was to cover everything for the intermediary exam. Chemistry, biotechnology, mathematics, physics – the whole damn package. Though, I had a year. If I put my heart into it, I was sure I could do it.

  After all, back in my original world, I was a biology teacher. I could definitely do it. I just needed to lock in.

  Yeah. And with that thought, I gathered all my courage, sat down with my personal tablet and opened one data file after another.

  Hmm... meta-neuron genes…genetics. Oh, mRNA influence in cell evolution…oh, I know this part. Mitochondria, the powerhouse of the cell.

  See? Not that difficult after all.

  …

  Yawn …

  My eyes kept wandering back to the clock, tracing the slow crawl of its hands as if they mocked me for even thinking time had passed.

  …

  Well, there’s still one year. I could always start from tomorrow.

  I mean…one day would hardly make a difference, RIGHT?

  …