The delicate paper brushed lightly against his fingertips, smooth and soft. Lying before him was a book on social history.

　　Dong... dong... dong...

　　A muffled sound of the clock tower faintly drifted in from outside the window.

　　George Miller turned his face to glance outside. The building across the street was pitch black, not a single light: "It's already midnight? Just as the effect of intelligence has also been analyzed..."

　　At that moment, a "click" came from his sister's room next door—the sound of turning off the light.

　　George Miller stood up, lay on his back on his own bed, and rested his hands behind his head.

　　"Overall memory has improved slightly, logical analysis is much clearer and faster, and most importantly, my short-term analytical and calculation abilities have sped up... Even the social history that George Miller hated the most has been reluctantly supplemented with some basics. If I look at it in terms of a game, at my current level, my social history subject should be considered elementary. There should be intermediate and advanced stages after this, for complete mastery. Three stages."

　　Just as this thought flashed through his mind, a new line of symbols suddenly appeared above the five attributes at the bottom of his vision. George Miller was instantly stunned.

　　"What the... it can even do this?" He abruptly sat up from the bed, speechless as he stared at the newly appeared symbol.

　　A pale red symbol clearly floated at the bottom of his vision.

　　Skill Mastery—(Social History: Elementary. Condition achieved: Intelligence above 0.34.)

　　George Miller stared in astonishment at this line of symbols, checking it over and over for more than ten minutes before finally confirming that this thing had really appeared at the bottom of his vision.

　　Like the other attributes, it was just a tiny symbol—if you didn't look closely, you could easily overlook it. And when he wasn't actively paying attention, these red symbols would automatically become semi-transparent, not affecting his vision at all.

　　And right after this new symbol appeared, George Miller recalled all the content of the social history course again—at least seventy to eighty percent of it could be easily remembered, as if it were deeply engraved in his mind.

　　"I only carefully read through this course once today, and now it's almost like I have a photographic memory... Looks like this is the benefit of adding points to intelligence. From this, it seems that different difficulty subjects must have different intelligence requirements, and different mastery levels also require different intelligence thresholds."

　　Next, George Miller had no trace of sleepiness left. He turned over and got out all the textbooks for every subject.

　　He took them all out, one by one, to try.

　　Half an hour later...

　　"It turns out the condition is that you must read through the entire book to establish a project, and the previous George Miller actually only mastered one subject in a whole year—Classics... and that was just elementary as well."

　　George Miller let out a completely speechless sigh of relief.

　　Looking at the symbols in his vision now.

　　Main Subjects: (Mathematics: Not Started), (Classics: Elementary), (Social History: Elementary), (Foreign Language: Not Started), (Physics: Not Started).

　　Mathematics, Classics, History, Foreign Language, and Physics—these five subjects were the main courses required by all academies, without exception. Because the national unified exam tested exactly these five.

　　George Miller recalled the specific score comparisons.

　　"In the past, for Classics, every exam out of 100 points, George Miller's scores hovered between 60 and 70. That is to say, this range is considered elementary level. If nothing unexpected happens, then my history should also be between 60 and 70 now. Such scores would definitely rank in the bottom ten of the class and grade."

　　"And for key universities in the unified exam, judging by Sheng Ying's results over the years, you need to be at least in the top 100 to securely get an admission ticket. In a grade with over a thousand students, getting into the top hundred isn't too hard." He thought of how George Miller's parents worked overtime every day just to afford tuition and boarding for the siblings, usually only having less than a day off on weekends. They had pinned almost all their hopes on the two siblings.

　　"To be in the top hundred, if the questions aren't unexpectedly hard, the average score needs to be at least between 70 and 80. So, if the main subjects can reach an average of intermediate or above, you can reliably get into a key school. But as you improve, so do others. If the questions are easy, it all comes down to who is more careful."

　　George Miller slowly pondered and analyzed these issues. "If only Franklin Reed's family heirloom black crystal could also absorb potential... just a little more and I could add another point." He suddenly remembered what happened at Bibo Lake and felt a bit regretful.

Chapter 7: Bronze Cross Medal

　　After roughly sorting out his thoughts and not thinking any further, George Miller took off his clothes, turned off the kerosene lamp, lay down on the bed, gently pulled up the quilt, gradually calmed down, and drifted into sleep in the darkness.

　　……

　　……

　　……

　　Dong... dong... the morning bell rang again and again.

　　Pale light shone on the white bedding. George Miller, lying on his back, slowly opened his eyes, glanced drowsily outside, took a deep breath, and only then slowly lifted the quilt and sat up.

　　In the pale red room, some parts of the redwood floor and walls were peeling, revealing the light yellow wood underneath. The silver-framed oil painting of a wheat field hanging on the wall was a bit crooked. The window on the right was half open, and gusts of cold wind kept blowing in, making a faint wailing sound.