Chapter 0001 - The Era of Origin Ability
High school Class 301 is a very spacious classroom. There were dozens of students sitting cross-legged similar to monks seeking enlightenment. A thin indistinct ray of light was revolving around their surroundings.
"Everyone, you are no longer carefree students! You are already entering your third year of high school; you only have one year before the college entrance examination. If you fail to enter a university, then it will be your destiny to be the food for the berserk beasts." The class teacher Yang Ziqing, a middle-aged woman, sprayed her saliva at those students who were training as she yelled at them with both hands on her waist.
"I do not care about the trouble you caused in the past or how lazy you are. When you are in my class, you are not allowed to slack off! By the end of this year, I want everyone here to train and improve their origin ability to at least rank 6 or above. If not, I won't allow you to participate in the college entrance examination."
"Did everyone hear what I said clearly?!" Yang Ziqing shouted because she did not receive a response from the students.
"Yes, we heard!" The students replied in unison.
"Very good." Yang Ziqing nodded in satisfaction. "You have all been taught the method to improve origin ability. Once you go back home, you can continue training. In one month's time, the high school's third years will have their first mock exam. Do not shame me! Oh yea, those ranked in the top 100 within the whole school will be entitled to join the natural selection class. I am sure you guys are aware of this. Class dismissed!"
"Hua~"
Instantly, the calm expression of students changed. Nobody could imagine the diligently meditating students would excitedly leave the classroom.
Yang Ziqing's face turned ashen. She knew that these monkeys were just acting. She could only look at them helplessly. Luckily, there was still a student who stayed behind and practiced seriously. At least, it gave her a trace of comfort.
However, his origin ability talent was a regrettable matter.
Below the stage, Su Hao took a deep breath. Dim light rays slowly gathered around him. He woke up from his meditation. "My origin ability had increased by a tiny bit. At this rate, within a month, my ability index should be able to rise to 100. In addition to my body essence and theoretical foundation, my origin ability has the potential to reach rank 4!"
Su Hao stood up and did some stretching while looking out the window.
His schoolmates were proudly showing off their abilities outside. Some were crushing stones with their fists. Someone was generating fireballs in the woods. There were also some who squatted beside the swimming pool and were producing ice. Even worst, some troublemakers were fooling around and flying in the sky.
The current era he lived in was the era of origin ability!
In the year 2030, a calamity swept across Earth. The later generations described this event as the descendant of the origin ability light rays into the Earth's surface.
Various origin abilities started to appear, bestowed upon human beings. Some animals even obtained special abilities. From then on, the Earth became embroiled in chaos. In the end, all governments from different countries had to make a joint alliance. After twenty years past, peace was finally restored and the situation stabilized.
Humans grasped the power of the origin ability and its uses for research, education, agriculture, and other fields. Societal development had improved by leaps and bounds. Previously unachievable technologies were now possible. It was currently the year 2050; the world has long entered the era of origin ability.
It is currently the best era ever. People do not need to worry about clothes and food. High school students are given a chance to integrate their origin ability and master it with all the facilities provided for free.
However, it is also the worst era ever. The wild wandering animals became ferocious beasts that would kill mercilessly. Besides the cities, no other place could guarantee the people's safety.
For the students in high school, their only goals were: to control their origin ability, participate in the college entrance examination, and enter the best universities!
"If I want to enter a university, my origin ability needs to reach at least rank 6. Based on my current speed, by the time I participate in the college entrance exam, I might not even reach rank 5. It seems that it is hopeless to enter university after all." Su Hao became depressed.
This era, most special abilities surviving and fighting. But his origin ability was surprisingly model analysis, a weak and unless ability.
Su Hao had calculated before. Even if he trained non-stop and barely qualified for a university, he would still be using model analysis. He would probably end up as a general's advisor's model maker or become an unknown planning architect who worked behind the scenes.
While he could live with such a life, which young boy does not have any blood boiling dreams? Slaying berserk beasts or protecting Earth. Just mentioning those would fire up any youngster.
Too bad, a dream would remain a dream.
The origin ability rank was significantly related to one's talent. If one has a weak origin ability talent, then one is doomed to have a low rank.
According to the latest global evaluation, the final original ability value was calculated by summing up the values of theoretical foundation, physical fitness, fighting skill, and ability index before divided by 100.
Theoretical foundation is a basic theory course which includes all the information regarding origin ability, fearful beasts, combat methods, overcoming weakness, and herbs growing on Earth. In short, all the knowledge of this world. The difficulty was so high that it raised people's ire. The upper limit of this course is 200 points. In general, any student who can obtain 100 points out of 200 is considered exceptional.
Physical fitness represents the strength of the body has an upper limit of 400 points. In general, the average points scored by a high school student would be around 100.
Combat methods, comprising of current combat skills and martial arts, has an upper limit of 400. However, the score would be around 0 to 5 for an average student.
The last and most important is ability index!
Ability index together with talent rank are closely related to origin ability. However, the calculation is very complicated. The talents are ranked from F to A; the higher the talent rank, the higher the ability index difference would be.
The upper limit is limitless!
Because of Su Hao's ability, his grade E model analysis pulled down his overall score.
He scored 180 points in theoretical foundation, 100 points in physical fitness, 0 points in combat method, and 100 points in ability index, totaling 380 points. That made his origin ability possess a value of 3.8, soon to reach 4.
Su Hao silently calculated in his heart while his hands cleaned up his stuff so he could leave school.
However, a sudden kick loudly destroyed the classroom door.
"Su Hao, come out and meet this father of yours!" A handsome and tall student stood at the door.
"What is happening?" Su Hao did not go out. He is not a fool. This student is called Sun Yaotian, a genius student. His origin ability value was above 8 points. Thus, he could casually crush Su Hao at any moment.
"Did you and Chen Yiran go home together again?" Sun Yaotian snorted.
Su Hao frowned. "We walk in the same direction. After school, we would occasionally walk home together."
"I do not care whether both you are heading in the same direction or not." In a single breath, Sun Yaotian interrupted him. "I believe you certainly know what Chen Yiren's ability is. With your qualifications, you do not deserve to even look at her! Next time get far away from her. If not, I will crush you whenever I see you."
"Su Yaotian, you!" Su Hao became furious and clenched his fist tight.
"What, you wanna fight?" Sun Yaotian sneered at him, "The school rules state that no fights are allowed in the classrooms. If you dare, leave this classroom."
Su Hao's face became ashen. The anger in his heart immediately subsided.
With his origin ability value of 3.8 against Sun Yaotian, it was like throwing an egg onto a stone. Sun Yaotian would probably smack him dead with a hit. The classrooms are indeed a place that forbids fighting, but it would be an entirely different story if he started the fight.
"Chicken!" Sun Yaotian sneered seeing Su Hao not reacting and left the classroom. "Remember my words. It is my last warning."
"Sun Yaotian…" Su Hao was filled with boiling anger.
He was more hardworking than anyone else. However, he could only manage to lurk around at the bottom level. It was just because of his damn origin talent. His theoretical foundation score of 180 points made him one of the top 10 in the school, but his ability index was just 80 points. As for Sun Yaotian, just his ability index alone scored him a whopping 500 points.
Because Sun Yaotian's ability is an A rank ability, metal control. It was a master level fighting ability which combines both offense and defense. Thus, improving the overall combat effectiveness. Compared to his nuisance model analysis, the gap was too huge.
"One day… I will definitely exceed you!" Raging anger could be seen in Su Hao's eyes. He turned around and left the classroom.
His mindset was simple. Talent does not necessarily beat hard work.
So what if his origin ability is low leveled? Since he would not score well in the ability index, he would be fine if he could score the remaining 1000 points in other areas. Scoring 200 points in theoretical foundation, 400 in combat technique, and another 400 in physical fitness. Once the points were in his grasp, he would still end up with an origin ability value 10 and become powerful!
Su Hao clenched his teeth. Leaving the school's compound, he went straight back home.
There was a never-ending flow of humans on the main street.
"Putong!"
A person quickly flashed through Su Hao's body. Only an afterimage could be seen; the fast speed left goosebumps. Su Hao, who was grazed, was immediately startled.
He was checking some information on his phone, and the graze caused his phone to drop into the man's bag.
Su Hao was stunned momentarily and had a delayed reaction, "Thief?"
He could only see a shadow flash past him. A middle-aged man rushed in the other direction. With that, Su Hao immediately understood. "Damn, he is a thief, and I am not the only victim."
At this street, the number of thieves was not small. Even worse, most of them relied on their high-speed abilities. Snatching an item and instantly running off. This tactic made most people unable to react in time. Too bad, Su Hao became the victim.
Su Hao's anger was at the end of his fuse from Sun Yaotian's threat. The moment he reached the street, he immediately had his phone snatched by a thief.
"Peng!"
Su Hao sent a punch and immediately destroyed the protection of a nearby flying motorcycle. He immediately jumped on it to chase the thief.
When the flying motorcycle engine was started, a curtain of light surrounded the base of the vehicle. While floating in the air, it immediately dashed in the direction of the thief. Su Hao gritted his teeth, "F*ck you! With your speed, you think nobody will be able to catch you?"
Three shadows flashed through the street.
The black shadow was leading in front, followed by an angry middle-aged man and Su Hao taking the rear on the flying motorcycle.
After giving chase for more than ten minutes, Su Hao was finally able to catch up to them at the bridge of Jiang He.
Far away, he could see the thief and the middle-aged man were fighting with each other. Su Hao sped up, "Damn thief! Let's see where can you run."
Su Hao felt that something was wrong as the flying motorcycle was rushing towards them, but could not tell what it was at that moment.
"Whump!"
The middle-aged man slumped to the ground. The thief immediately blinked away from him. Su Hao was dumbstruck when he saw the thief holding a bloodstained white dagger which was just pulled out from the middle-aged man's body.
He then saw the thief taking out a blue colored bottle. He sprinkled a few drops of the liquid onto the body of the middle-aged man.
"Si! Ksshhhhh..."
The moment when the drops of liquid touched the body, the body of the middle-aged man immediately corroded until nothing remained.
"What…"
Watching this scene, Su Hao started to have a panic attack! This man was no thief; he was a killer! A killer from a wandering organization! The news he watched stated that killers from wandering organizations would have the latest developed decomposing liquids which could easily destroy any clues or evidence.
"Damn it!" Su Hao cursed.
Without any delay, he turned and wanted to reverse his vehicle. Unfortunately, the killer noticed his presence. He sneered, took out a silver pistol, and aimed at Su Hao.
Su Hao started trembling, and his hair became erected.
Sh*t! I'm going to die!
Being stared at by the killer's cold gaze, cold sweat began to appear. Unexpectedly, the compressed anger in Su Hao's heart began to explode.
"Su Hao, don't tell me that you are going to be bullied all the time?"
"No… never!"
Noticing some spots of blood on the killer's chest, it was evident that the middle-aged man injured him. The injury made him have a slower movement. Anger could be seen from Su Hao's eyes because he was afraid to die. But even if he were going to die, he would at least drag the killer together to hell with him.
"Kacha!"
Su Hao twisted his grip for maximum acceleration with a firm resolution.
"Hong!"
The motorcycle's engine burst out a pool of energy. The speed of the motorcycle instantly reached max acceleration. A beam of light passed through the air and hit the killer.
"Ci!"
A laser shot out from the silver gun towards Su Hao's direction. Unfortunately, the path was a bit crooked and caused the laser to fly beside Su Hao. But the laser's high temperature still burned his ear.
"Hong!"
The flying motorcycle hit the killer's chest. The killer was knocked back into some nearby metal containers. Countless containers fell on top of him. Dull metal sounds could be heard.
Su Hao, who had been accelerating, could no longer control the motorcycle and was thrown off. He fell to the ground and felt like he was eating dog sh*t. The degree of impact was not something he could handle.
With wounds all over his body, Su Hao stood up. He was scared when he found out that despite being walloped, the killer was still able to get himself out from the metal containers.
"What the f*ck! Those boxes weigh at least several tons. How did he survive that? How powerful is he?"
"I can't let him live!" This thought flashed through his mind. Su Hao picked up the silver gun next to him and aimed at the killer who had just come out from the boxes.
Icy cold, red, and horrified eyes stared at Su Hao. This gaze nearly made him fumble and dropped the gun.
"Go die!" Su Hao closed both his eyes and pressed the trigger.
"Pew!"
A laser ray shot out and penetrated the killer's body. The killer took a few steps back with eyes filled with disbelief. He slowly raised his hands to cover the wound. Not much blood was leaking out, as the high temperatures cauterized the wound. As light disappeared from his eyes, he slowly took a few steps back leaning against a metal container before sliding down (3).
"He died?" Su Hao had a sigh of relief.
The gun was thrown away from his hands upon feeling the fear in his heart. When he turned his body and had wanted to flee from the scene, he halted. Since he had scored 180 points in theoretical foundation, he has the advantage of knowing information that others might not know.
The pistol had his fingerprints. The middle-aged man had died and disappeared. The killer's body was still at the scene. He could not just leave like that (4).
Su Hao endured the sickening feeling in his heart and searched the killer's corpse for the blue bottle which contained the decomposing liquid.
"Si! Ksshhhh..."
The killer's body started to decompose slowly. Even the silver gun, flying motorcycle, and all the other evidence at the scene were destroyed.
He did not dare to leave anything behind. He was worried that even the weapon was equipped with a GPS or other tracking system.
"Finally, it's done!" Su Hao was completely relieved.
From the incident, besides the decomposing liquid, he also found a mysterious blue and black card under the killer's corpse.
"What item is this? Even the decomposing liquid can't destroy it?" This card caught his attention immediately when the decomposing effect did not affect it.
"Sou!"
The blurry black card glowed and was instantly sucked into Su Hao's right hand. Immediately, his body disappeared from the scene without a trace.
"Weng!"
Su Hao felt a roaring echo in his mind. The surrounding scene became unreal. The Jiang He bridge was upside down. His sight became very hazy.
That feeling of being half-awake and half-asleep felt like it happened for a long time, but also felt like just a moment.
The mysterious card was in the middle of Su Hao's mind, flashing continuously. If Su Hao were sober, he would be able to hear all sorts of information from the card itself.
"…Discovered model analysis… fusion initiated… reconstruction in progress…"
Before the psychedelic light, Su Hao felt that he was under the effect of some hallucinatory drug. Although he could not feel his true self, he felt very comfortable and relaxed.
"Shua!"
Su Hao's body was agitated, causing him to wake up instantly.
There was no sign of people attacking him when looking at the surroundings. When he had a look at himself, he did not seem to find anything abnormal.
"I wonder what kind of trick the killer used. I nearly fell for it."
Su Hao shook his head and went to a corner where no one would notice him before quickly leaving the scene.