Ethan Chen is the kid teachers forget to call on. Average grades, no real talents, constantly measured against a cousin who "actually tries." Then one night he has a dream he can't explain, and wakes up different — read something once and he knows it cold, watch someone move and he understands exactly how they're doing it. It should make school easy. It does, for about five minutes. Then it drags him into a martial arts club he never meant to join, a rival who won't leave him alone, a girl next door who's noticed him changing before he has, and a city that turns out to have a lot more going on underneath it than anyone at Bridgewater High ever taught. Turns out knowing how to do something and actually being able to do it aren't the same thing — and Ethan's about to find out the hard way just how much the second one costs.