A school bell sounds a lot like a funeral dirge when you're John Newman.

‘We are gathered here today to mourn the passing of Johnathan Benjamin Newman. Beloved son of Brenda Newman, Johnathan was unfortunately sent home to his heavenly father early in his life due to his foolishness when dealing with the villainous Frank Dickinson.’

“I don’t get it.”

“Well, Mr. Hernandez explained it, like, twice already. Pretty sure if you can’t understand it, that's more on you.”

“Yeah but I thought this is why we had Newman and Brighton in the group. To explain when the fossil can’t.”

‘He leaves his PC to his best friend, Cho Ling, with a final request being that he wipes the hard drive before claiming it as his own. To his other best friend Alex Luellen, he leaves behind his miniature collection, knowing that she always shared a fascination for painting and collecting miniatures.’

“Brighton is half asleep, so nothing new there. But Newman… I dunno. Hey, Newman, what the hell is wrong with you?”

John turned his head, looking at his other group members in chem. Titus was looking pretty confused, but the man wasn’t the best at this class. Plus, their professor wasn’t great at explaining things due to him being old and stuck in his ways. Kelli, the person trying to grab his attention, at least seemed to understand it but probably was still a bit lost knowing how well the two tended to do in this class.

“**** comes to embrace me. I have walked through the valley of the shadow of **** and failed to escape.”

Kelli rolled her eyes. “No need to be dramatic, Newman. Seriously, you promised to help us out in the class. What’s wrong?”

“Zzwhat?” Moira Brighton, the 4th member of their group, suddenly shot up, waking up. “I’m awake! I’m awake! I… Wait, what’s wrong with Newman?”

“You tell us, Moira,” Titus said, aggressively erasing something on his page. “He just came in looking like he just got out of Vietnam, laid his head on the desk, and just started muttering to himself.”

John felt someone shake his shoulder and turned his head. There he saw Moira Brighton giving him a look of genuine concern, and despite the clear lack of sleep on her face, she seemed curious about what was going on. “John? What happened?”

John took a moment to admire Moira. She really was gorgeous, with long red hair and a face that could make a monk rethink his vows. Not to mention that she was clearly strong, and John would be a liar if he hadn’t fantasized about her a few times. John shook the dirty thoughts from his head, and sat up a bit. “I talked back to Frank.”

Moira gave him a look of confusion, while Titus and Kelli both made noises of understanding while nodding their heads. “You… talked back to… Frank?”

“Yeah. And he did not take it kindly.”

Moira raised an eyebrow, turning to look at Titus and Kelli. “I am going to assume this makes sense to you?”

“It doesn’t to you?” Titus asked. “Frank’s been bullying John since middle school. Plus, he’s, like, twice John’s size.”

“What did Frank say he was gonna do to you?” Kelli asked, far more interested in this than chem.

“Said he would pound me into hamburger meat after school.”

“Gay.”

“Titus, shut up,” Kelli said, though she was chuckling. “When and where?”

“After school on the soccer field.”

“Why don’t you just… not go?” Moira asked.

John shook his head. “Frank promised he would pound me even worse if I tried to skip the fight.”

“Are we just not doing phrasing anymore?” Titus asked with a smile.

Kelli slapped him on the arm, getting a fake groan of pain from Titus. “That sucks, John. Looks like you gotta go.”

“Hold on!” Moira exclaimed. “You can’t be serious! John is being told he’s gonna get beaten to a pulp and your response is just ‘too bad but that's how it is?’ Can’t we go to the teachers? Or someone?”

Kelli rolled her eyes. “C’mon, Moira, you're supposed to be the smart one. Frank is the star quarterback and is taking Ashcroft to a winning season this year. If we complain to any teachers or the principal even, Frank will deny it and they will just handwave everything away. And then John is just going to get it worse. Trust me, John’s doing the smart thing of just taking the beating and moving on. Now, as for explaining this percent mass stuff…”

“No! No, I won't accept that!” Moira turned to John and crossed her arms. “You cannot tell me that you’re just going to lie there and accept that Frank is going to beat you up.”

John shrugged. “What else can I do? Frank is twice my size and has been doing more physical activity in a week than I normally do in a year. Plus, I don’t even know the first thing when it comes to fighting.”

That's when John saw a glimmer of something spark in Moira’s eye. She smiled, sitting back down rather calmly. “John, do you have a free period?”

John gave her a confused look. “Uh… yeah. I’ve got a 4th period study hall and then I’ve got A lunch.”

“Perfect. Then in that case, you are going to meet me in the old gym by the band room. I’m going to teach you how to fight.”

John shot up like a rocket. “Wait, you’re going to what?!”

Kelli and Titus also looked surprised. “You know how to fight?! Since when?”

Moira shrugged. “My dad was worried about me when I was younger and had me take self defense classes. I got to be pretty good at it. Now, while I can’t promise you’ll win the fight, I can at least help you put up a fight to begin with. Maybe keep yourself from getting as beaten up.”

John smiled, quickly taking Moira’s hand and shaking it vigorously. “Oh, thank you. Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou! When I have kids, I’ll name one of them after you! I’ll make sure they put you in for sainthood. I’ll-”

“Alright, alright. Calm down. We still have classwork to get done.” Moira smoothed out her blouse before picking up the worksheet they were all doing. “Now… what the heck are we-”

“Oh, this is all about balancing the molarity of chemical equations. It’s all basic conversion tables like we did two weeks ago,” John said, grabbing his pencil and quickly solving the first problem that the other two had been stuck on. They all looked at him dumbfounded. John just simply smiled. “What? I had to do something while being overdramatic about dying after school. Might as well make sure to go out with good grades.”

John’s next two periods honestly passed by in a flash. Art was hard enough for him to focus on normally, with his attention constantly being captured by the radiant beauty known as Ms. Summers making it hard for him to focus on his art projects. Now he was abuzz with anticipation about being taught how to actually fight! Sure, it would be for less than an hour, or around an hour and 15 if they didn’t break for lunch, but something was better than nothing!

Maybe his Gamer powers would kick in and he would suddenly gain the skills of a kung fu master through a bit of training. Or maybe he would get lucky and find a sword in a trash can or something. Sure, it made him look a bit weird, peering into every trash can he passed, but he had a chance! He had a solid chance to live!

When he got to English, again his mind would not focus. Although now it was more wondering about what Moira would teach him. He would have never picked the girl for a fighter, though she was rather strong so maybe that strength came from something like kickboxing practice or martial arts. He knew her family was rich, but she probably still went to some dojo around here to learn. Right?

Ah well, he was just happy that he had a chance. A real solid chance at not dying!

But then how much would she be able to actually teach him? How much would his newfound powers help him? All he had done so far was look at people and not get a dent in his head when Frank slammed it into a locker. And while one of those might help him survive his battle with Frank, he really doubted his Observe power would suddenly expand into laser eyes or mind control.

Oh yeah, he was still working on that. Then again, maybe he should save his mana for training. John pulled up his character sheet, taking a quick browse to see how he was doing.

Wait, his health was STILL below full?

Oh, right. He only regenerated less than half a point of health per HOUR. At least his mana regenerated at a decent rate. If he spent it all instantly, he would be back up to fill in less than a half an hour. But health? If he got knocked down to 1 HP it would take him… John pulled out a small piece of paper and did some quick math. It would take him 181 hours. Or over a week to fully heal back up.

And John had no doubt in his mind that Frank was about to knock him around enough that he would take SOME damage. God, he had to find a way to be able to heal faster! And not one that was just raising his stats, as while he got lucky with some stat points early on and a quest that would give him more, he really doubted this would continue for the entirety of his magical life. No, he needed a skill that would give him healing.

John thought back to some of his favorite games he had played over the years. Usually in RPGs there would be a character who could give you some healing if you were in need of it, and in the case of lacking that kind of a character, there would be some sort of fountain to drink from to get his health back. But John doubted that the water fountain would suddenly have life-giving properties, and John didn’t know any local alchemists or healers. Or whatever the lady in Zelda II was.

Well, there was also resting. Most games that had some form of healing would let you rest in a bed or by a campfire or even take a short rest to get health back. Granted, he lacked the hit dice of D&D, but maybe this was more of a Star Wars: The Old Republic thing where you had a skill that just let you do an idle animation when you were out of combat and regain health back quickly.

But he had been pretty idle for the past couple of hours. And out of combat. But he hadn’t healed back any health yet.

John tapped his pencil against his chin, completely ignoring the class around him. Maybe it was a sort of zen thing? Like maybe he had to do something that allowed him to focus more on himself and his health and mana, and then he would regenerate it. John tuned back into the lecture, but they were just reading through the chapter that John’d read a few days ago. He still had plenty of time to zone out.

John then took in a deep breath and zoned out. He kept his eyes open, but just unfocused them and stared out into nothingness while seeming to look at his book. But his mind began to just focus. He focused on his breathing, feeling the cool air be drawn in through his mouth before coming out through his nose. He focused on the feeling of his chest slowly expanding and contracting, the beat of his heart behind his ribs. He swore he could feel the push of his blood through his veins, bringing life from his heart to the rest of his body. And, as he focused a little bit more, he could almost feel the thrum of something else beneath the skin. Something like blood, but different. Something that flowed through him like water.

Something… magical.

John took in another deep breath and continued to focus. For a few moments, he truly felt his body in a way he hadn’t experienced before. All other distractions faded away as he just listened to what his body was doing. He could even feel the slight sting on his head where he had collided with the locker. He knew there was no damage there, but he could still feel his body remembering that's where he was hit, and that it needed to be fixed. He felt at one with himself, and that his body was ready to-

BRRRRIIIIIIIIINNNNNNGGGGG

The sudden ringing of the bell knocked John for a loop, pulling him out of his meditation. The other students were all gathering up their stuff and heading out, and John quickly followed suit. But as he stuffed his notepad and book into his backpack, he noticed another notification had popped up.

Oh. Well. That was useful. John dismissed the popup and, as he headed over to the old gym, thought over the new skill. Changing his HP regen from “per hour” to “per minute” felt kinda busted. That was just saying “have a x60 regen rate”. But it also made sense, kind of. John’s natural “per hour” regen was just him naturally healing. Still better than your average person, but slow over time. But if he was going to sit and do nothing but meditate, hell yeah he shouldn’t have to sit there for hours to fully heal. Or if he did, he better be at the bottom of the barrel in terms of his health.

It did also say he had to remain inactive during the meditation. Which meant he would have to make sure he wouldn’t be interrupted like he was with the bell. But that shouldn’t be too bad. His mom regularly left him on his own for a few hours where he would usually just game or draw or do… other things.

‘No time to think about spanking it, you have training to do!’ John thought to himself, walking boldly into the old gym. It had been part of the building since the old days and now was just mostly used for students to skip class and smoke.

“Alright, Moira! Ready to learn how to fi-”

John’s jaw dropped as he saw Moira. Clearly, she had gotten here earlier, as she had pulled out some mats for them to fight on and had changed into some workout clothes. And despite being known for being a bit more uptight than the other students, John saw her clad in tight shorts that hugged her every curve as well as a sporty tank top that made John realize just how buff and curvy she really was.

Moira smiled at him, and gestured for him to join her.